Quantitative Trader (London / New York)
How Markets Should Be
Traditional financial markets are broken. We are fixing them. QFEX is building the first perpetual futures exchange to allow 24/7, high leverage on traditional financial assets, as well as a trading firm to support liquidity on those assets.
Our vision: this kind of exchange will replace the entire $100bn TradFi exchange, clearing and brokerage industry. Our mission: make QFEX that exchange.
We were founded by Cambridge mathematicians Annanay Kapila and Joshua Wharton. Annanay was previously a Quant at Tower Research Capital and Josh was an Engineer at Citadel. The team also includes former staff from Jump, Barclays, and more. QFEX raised $9.5m in May from a group of investors including Y Combinator, General Catalyst, Nexus Venture Partners and Paul Graham (as an angel).
Overview
We are seeking an exceptional and highly motivated Quantitative Trader with direct experience in a high-frequency or proprietary trading environment to join our market-making team. This is a hard problem: we already form a large proportion of the out-of-hours trading volume on traditional assets, and are among the first to quote them over the weekend. This includes both QFEX and other venues. This is an opportunity to leverage your existing expertise in a high-impact environment, learn from some of the best minds in the business, and contribute directly to the firm's success.
What You'll Do
- Live Strategy Management: Oversee the real-time performance of automated market-making systems, ensuring strategies operate within defined risk and performance parameters.
- Signal Research: Analyze large, high-frequency datasets to identify new market signals, pricing inefficiencies, and structural advantages.
- Execution Research: Conduct in-depth statistical analysis on trading performance, market microstructure, and execution quality to drive continuous improvement.
- Collaboration with Engineering: Work closely with core engineering teams to specify requirements for low-latency infrastructure, data pipelines, and deployment frameworks.
What You'll Need
- Direct Experience: 1 to 4 years of hands-on experience as a Quantitative Trader or Researcher at a proprietary trading firm running automated strategies. HFT market-making and/or grey-box automated strategies — not pure modelling, not positional/long-horizon hedge-fund style, not risk management.
- P&L Responsibility: Demonstrated ability to contribute positively to trading P&L, even in a junior capacity, with a clear understanding of the drivers of that P&L.
- Education: Top-tier academic credentials. Tier 1: Oxbridge / Imperial (UK), HYPSM (US), IITs (India), TU Delft (NL), KU Leuven (BE), ENS / École Polytechnique (FR), or the #1-ranked university in the candidate's home country if not from one of the above.
- Python Proficiency: Strong Python including data-science libraries.
- Data Analysis: Hands-on with large-scale, high-frequency time-series data — cleaning, processing, statistical inference.
- Flexible Working: Willing to work unsocial hours on a shift basis, including weekends.
Bonus Points
- High-performance language: Rust, Go, C, or C++.
- Linux/Unix environment and shell scripting.
- Crypto exchange API experience.
Hard Excludes (style of work, not firm prestige)
- Banks (any seat, including bank quant-trading).
- Hedge fund / multi-strategy / pod-shop positional or signal-research seats (e.g., Squarepoint, Millennium, Point72, Balyasny, ExodusPoint, DE Shaw fund side, Citadel fund side). The hedge-fund side of multi-business firms is out; only the dedicated HFT/MM businesses (e.g., Citadel Securities) count.
- Risk-management seats.
- Commodities / weather / power desks.
- Pure quant researchers who don't own or touch live strategies.
Compensation
£75,000 – £150,000 GBP base + equity or revenue share, depending on experience.
Location
London or New York. New hires spend the first ~2 months in London in person regardless of long-term base.
Visa
UK sponsorship available. US L1 transfer possible after 1 year of tenure.
Interview Process
- Founder Calls (2 x 30 mins) — non-technical, learn about the vision and share your story.
- Technical Rounds (2 x 90 mins) — mixture of technical questions, fitted to background.
Enquiries: careers@qfex.com