The Akuna Capital Interview Process and Its Options Focus

Akuna Capital's smaller cohort moves through dense rounds built around options Greeks and hedging decisions rather than abstract trading games.

Akuna Capital's interview process centers on options pricing and Greeks the way its larger market-making peers do, running a quantitative screen followed by interview rounds built around how a candidate would hedge and adjust a position as an option's sensitivities change.

Akuna Capital is an options market maker headquartered in Chicago, quoting prices across listed derivatives and managing the resulting risk through continuous hedging, a business model close to that of larger peers in the options market-making industry but run at a smaller headcount. Because the firm is smaller, candidates report a process that moves through fewer, denser rounds rather than a long multi-stage funnel, with each interview expected to cover more ground.

Akuna also runs a substantial technology function supporting its trading systems, and while trading and technology candidates follow different tracks, both are expected to demonstrate comfort with the probability and options concepts that underpin the firm's business, since engineers work closely enough with trading desks that a shared vocabulary matters.

Candidates typically begin with an online assessment covering quantitative reasoning and probability, followed by one or two interviews with a trader or quantitative researcher from the hiring desk. A final round, often condensed into a single day, combines further technical interviews with a discussion of options concepts and, for many candidates, a trading or pricing exercise.

Because Akuna interviews in smaller cohorts than some of its larger competitors, candidates report faster turnaround between rounds, with less time between an initial screen and a final decision than at firms running interviews on a fixed cycle for hundreds of applicants at once.