Quant interview processes vary across firms. Some focus heavily on standardized technical screens, brainteasers, or credentials. Ours is built for a different purpose.
At QSG, we are less interested in whether someone can perform well in a narrow interview format and more interested in whether they can do the actual work: think clearly, structure research, handle ambiguity, communicate honestly, and develop over time.
We are trying to understand how you think, what you build, how you respond to feedback, and whether you are serious about markets.
What Makes QSG Different
Many traditional quant interview processes are designed for firms recruiting at scale. They often rely on standardized filters such as school, GPA, technical screens, coding problems, and probability questions.
That approach can work for large institutions, but it does not always tell you much about whether someone can actually build, iterate, and grow in a live trading environment.
Our process is designed around different questions:
- Do you show initiative?
- Can you take an open-ended problem and structure it well?
- Do you understand your own work deeply enough to explain and defend it?
- Can you recognize mistakes and improve them?
- Are you genuinely interested in markets and in the day-to-day work of becoming a trader?
We are not trying to filter for polished interview performance alone. We are trying to identify people who may develop into strong traders over time.
What We Are Actually Looking For
We care about a small number of things, but we care about them a lot.
1. Clear, Structured Thinking
We want to see that you can take a messy problem and break it into reasonable pieces. That includes defining the objective, making sensible assumptions, understanding tradeoffs, and communicating limitations.
2. Clean, Reviewable Work
For students, a strong plan points to work that can be reviewed end to end: something you built and tested on your own, which you can take us through on the technical call. That means:
- code is organized and readable
- assumptions are clear
- data handling is sensible
- validation choices are explainable
- results can be reproduced
For traders, a strong record is one you can explain: how it was produced, the assumptions behind it and where it could break. If the work cannot be reviewed or explained, it is much harder for us to evaluate.
3. Good Research Hygiene
A strong result only counts if it was produced properly.
We pay attention to things like:
- leakage and lookahead risk
- weak train/test design
- fragile assumptions
- poor handling of messy data
- lack of reproducibility
- confusing or inconsistent bookkeeping
Flashy results built on weak foundations don't count for much, however good they look.
4. Honesty and Intellectual Flexibility
Each claim in your plan or record will draw follow-up questions. This is not meant to be adversarial. We use follow-up to understand how deeply you understand your own work and how you respond when something is challenged.
If a decision was intentional, you should be able to explain and defend it clearly.
If you made a mistake, it is usually much better to identify it directly and fix it than to dig in and defend something that does not hold up. We respect clear thinking and honesty much more than unnecessary defensiveness.
5. Serious Interest in Markets
We are looking for people who want to be traders because they're entrepreneurial, they enjoy building, and they see an opportunity in markets. What we ask for depends on the track. Quantitative Traders bring a strategy with an annualized Sharpe ratio of 2.5 or higher, computed from daily returns, as set out in the role description. A backtest counts; you don't need to have traded it live. A Sharpe of 2.5 is the point where it's worth having a conversation. Traders grow, and we want to be there to invest in a trader's business as it does.
We like to see evidence that someone has tried to build, test, analyze, or explore something on their own, even if the work is early or imperfect.
What We Ask For
Our candidate project differs from the quant-skills homework used by other firms. We're not testing quant skills at this step: we test those later, and candidates who get this far already have them. We want to hear your plan for building your business as a trader over the first two years. Treat it as a pitch, because it is one: you're looking for an investor to back your new business, and that's what we are. You'll need to defend every claim in the conversations that follow.
The plan is requested after we review your initial application; it is not part of the initial résumé and overview upload.
For both tracks: Aim for approximately 1,000 to 1,500 words, excluding charts and tables. Tell us what you'd do and why, how you'd know it was working, and what would make you change course.
For Academic Traders, you don't need a strategy yet. Here are some areas you can cover:
- What you've already done on your own, outside coursework or employment, with dates and at least one number. Include results that didn't work.
- One idea you tried and dropped, and why.
- Where you'd start: the markets or kinds of ideas you'd want to work on first, and why they interest you.
- How you'd spend the two years.
- What you'd do six months in if nothing had earned real size.
- Where you want to be in five years.
Quantitative Traders bring the record of a strategy they own and build the plan around it, then present the strategy and the plan to a few of our traders. Here are some areas you can cover:
- What the strategy trades and why the edge should exist.
- The record, including the capital it ran on or assumed.
- Capacity: how much capital it can take before the edge goes.
- Where it could break.
- What you'd build next over the two years.
If you build something between steps, feel free to share it. We're most excited about candidates who are genuinely enthusiastic about markets and finding opportunities in markets.
What neither needs is a statement of how much you want this. Anyone can write one, so on its own it earns nothing.
What Interviews Tend to Explore
Our interviews are not just about whether you can answer technical questions in isolation. They are meant to help both sides understand whether this work is a real fit.
Interviews may explore:
- your plan and the work behind it
- prior research or coding work
- probability and decision-making
- strategy and market reasoning
- how you communicate under uncertainty
- how you respond to feedback
- whether you actually enjoy this type of work
We may also use short exercises or discussions involving probability, games of chance, strategy, or market scenarios to better understand how you think.
How Candidates Should Prepare
The best preparation is usually straightforward:
- know your own work well
- be ready to walk through your code and decisions end to end
- if you're bringing a strategy, be ready to walk through its record, assumptions, capacity and where it could break
- be honest about strengths and weaknesses
- be ready to explain tradeoffs and limitations
- be genuinely thoughtful about why you want to do this work
Trying to optimize for what you think we want to hear is usually less effective than understanding your own work deeply and speaking plainly about it.
The Main Point
Our process is not designed to reward polished interviewing alone. It is designed to help us identify candidates who may develop well once they are given real exposure to research, markets, execution, and feedback.
We are looking for people who can build, think, learn, and improve.