Akuna Capital
2022/23 Quantitative Researcher Summer Internship (Nov 2022)
Sydney
Opportunity expired
Opportunity details
- Internship, Clerkship or Placement
- AUD 110,000 - 200,000 / Year
- 5-10 vacancies
- Apply by 14 Jul 2022
- Start date 26 Nov 2022
What youโll do as a Quantitative Research Intern at Akuna:
Our Quantitative Team are a mixture of mathematicians, statisticians and technologists that find solutions to problems. We create trading models and strategies scientifically by combining our quantitative expertise with an understanding of derivatives and financial markets. We are seeking interns to join the team to apply their quantitative skills to exciting problems. You don't need a background in finance or trading, instead, we look for maths and coding skills.
Our Quantitative Researchers work closely with our developers and traders to analyse and predict all facets of derivative pricing and develop trading strategies using statistical and machine learning algorithms. They create, conduct, and analyse experiments to develop a deep understanding of derivatives and financial markets, test solutions using historical parameters and market data, and perform extensive data analysis to directly improve our trading strategies, design and implement optimisation algorithms for portfolio construction, and advances existing initiatives to explore opportunities for new research topics.
This internship will include a mixture of Akunacademy training sessions, project work, and mentoring opportunities. If this sounds interesting to you, apply now! We are looking for people who have innovative ideas, think analytically, have an entrepreneurial mindset and want to make an immediate impact on our growing company and contribute to Akunaโs strategy portfolio.
Internship dates: 10 weeks from November 2022- to February 2023
Requirements for this role:
- Australian or NZ citizens or Australian Permanent residents only
- University Degree, graduating between August 2023 and January 2024
- An understanding of statistics and machine learning
- Basic programming skills in Python or C++
- Strong maths skills: able to apply concepts of probability, calculus and linear algebra
- Strong verbal and written communication skills
- Ability to run a project in a fast-paced, team environment
- Financial experience or studies are NOT a requirement
Qualities that make great candidates:
- Bachelor, Honours, Masters or PhDs in Statistics, Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, Engineering, or related degrees
- Distinction Average & proven strong academics
- Awards, prizes, medals, competitions, & scholarships
- Experience in research within an academic or professional environment
- Achievements outside of studies through your hobbies & interests
Hiring criteria
- No experience required
- Australian Citizen +more
- Engineering & Mathematics +more
- Bachelor or higher
- 75 WAM or Percentage
Reviews
It is a mix of keeping old systems alive and trying to build new systems on infrastructure.
Working on the Vals/Quant team, my role involves both bridging the gap between our quant research work and our prop systems as well as building mechanisms to improve our research capability.
As a trader, I'm responsible for overseeing our automated trading systems. This includes making sure it's behaving the way we'd expect, working with Devs on bugs to fix, or testing new features to implement. I also conduct research on potential new opportunities, and build tools to help us capitalize on those opportunities. It's exciting to know that my actions daily have a clear and noticeable impact on the bottom line.
About the employer
Akuna Capital
4.4
100 - 500 employees
Trading
Akuna Capital is an innovative trading firm with a strong focus on collaboration, cutting-edge technology, data driven solutions and automation.
Pros and cons of working at Akuna Capital
Pros
There's a really diverse range of backgrounds, so there's always an opportunity to have interesting conversations. The work itself is challenging and fun.
The people. Everyone is highly motivated and super intelligent.
I've been given the freedom to work on projects I find particularly interesting. As Iโve improved, Iโve been given more responsibility and trust, and itโs rewarding to know that I contribute significantly to the company.
Working with some of the smartest and most driven people. Unique insight into an opaque industry. Very intellectual culture. Decent Work-Life-Balance for "high finance"
Collaborative environment, interesting work, flat work hierarchy, meritocracy, well compensated
Cons
Weird/late hours sometimes.
Steep learning curve, intense work and high expectations can be challenging.
Intense atmosphere sometimes causes stress
A bit of a steep learning curve because you need to learn so much so quickly