Basic Information

• Company Name: Algoquant
• Name: Cherish Jain
• Role: Quant Analyst
• Location: Bangalore

Please elaborate on your internship role and/or any projects that you did?

It was a purely coding-focused project. I was assigned to develop an execution platform capable of running multiple trading strategies. A basic brute-force version of the code was already in use. My task was to work on a new platform—understand its APIs thoroughly—and re-implement the same logic (with modifications ofc) on this new setup. The execution platform specifically dealt with synthetic futures.

Please describe the selection process in detail (tests + interviews)?

First, there was a test that included one DSA question and 2–3 questions related to expectation and statistics. I was only able to solve the DSA question, which was of moderate difficulty and involved multiple monotonic stacks.

Then, there were three interview rounds. In the first round, the interviewer asked me the probability questions from the test, but I couldn’t answer them. After that, he asked 1–2 DSA questions and asked me to explain the logic for solving them. He also asked around 5–6 C++ questions.

The second round was conducted online and covered a wide range of topics. It started with a rapid-fire round of around 10 basic math questions, followed by 3–4 BrainStellar puzzles, and finally 1 or 2 DSA questions.

In the third round, a market simulation game was conducted in a very fast manner checking our oral calculations and then if we are able to remember calculations we did earlier in the game because their results were used later in the game.

What was your preparation strategy for Quant roles (trading and/or software)?

I prepared for DSA primarily using LeetCode and Striver’s resources. Additionally, I quickly went through a variety of puzzles from BrainStellar over the course of a couple of days

What were the working hours like?

around 9 or 10 hours, but I was given VPN access to server so I used to work at night as well sometimes

How would you describe the structure, work culture and work-life balance of the company?

Not hectic as a intern, but traders seemed in stress ofc at the time of expiry of derivatives(options, futures etc..)

A lot of Quant firms claim they don’t have silos, and use this as a USP. How true is this for the company you interned at?

nan

Was there any evaluation criteria followed by the company, if yes could you elaborate?

nope

How did the internship influence your career interests?

nan

How would you rate your overall internship experience?

well, onboarding experience wasn’t great like other big quant MNC’s but luckily i got a very well structure project as compared to others and was able to complete it and test it in simulation mode in live market, so overall it was decent enough.

Any myths or unknown facts you would like to bust/reveal? Feel free to add in any comments you have.

trading is not chaotic like wolf of wall street but gets little like that on expiry days of options:)

One piece of advice for someone preparing for similar roles.

Prepare DSA well and try to solve and go over as many Brain stellar and GFG puzzles as possible before interview if u get shortlisted.