The Optiver Interview Process and What Each Round Tests

Optiver's process opens with a strict timed math test most candidates fail, then moves into options pricing interviews and a live market-making game.

Optiver's process is anchored by a strict, timed mental math test that eliminates most applicants before a single trading question is asked, and candidates who clear it then face rounds built around pricing options and hedging a position as it moves against them. The full sequence commonly runs three stages: an online numerical assessment, one or two interview rounds covering probability and market-making logic, and a final assessment day of live trading games.

Optiver is an options market maker, quoting two-sided prices on listed derivatives across equities, indices, ETFs and other products on exchanges worldwide, and continuously adjusting those quotes as the underlying moves. Because a market maker's profit depends on pricing risk correctly in the seconds before a hedge can be placed, the firm filters for calculation speed before it evaluates anything else, which is why the numerical test sits at the very front of the funnel rather than after a conversation about background or motivation.

A trader at Optiver spends the day recalculating implied volatility, delta and other Greeks as prices move, work that depends on arithmetic fluency rather than a spreadsheet. The firm's interview process is built to simulate that pressure as directly as an interview format allows.

The process typically opens with an online numerical reasoning test taken from a computer, followed by one or two interviews conducted by phone or video that dig into probability, brain teasers and basic options logic. Candidates who advance are invited to a final assessment day, often in person, that stacks several interviews and at least one trading game into a single extended session.

The final assessment day is where most of the trading-specific evaluation happens, and candidates report interviewers rotating through the room so that a single day can cover technical depth, a live market-making exercise and a fit conversation without requiring separate visits.