The XTX Markets Interview Process for Researchers

XTX Markets weights its researcher interviews toward machine learning and statistics, reflecting a firm built on algorithmic FX pricing.

XTX Markets evaluates research candidates through a technical screen in statistics and machine learning, two or three technical interviews, and an onsite round focused on research methodology rather than classic market-making cases. Founded in 2015 by Alex Gerko, XTX Markets built its business on algorithmic pricing in foreign exchange and has grown into one of the largest electronic liquidity providers in that market, which shapes an interview process weighted more toward data and modeling than toward mental arithmetic.

XTX Markets is best known as a major liquidity provider in foreign exchange, quoting prices across spot and other FX instruments to banks, brokers, and other institutions on an electronic, largely automated basis. The firm also trades equities and other asset classes, but its public profile and its regular ranking in industry FX surveys center on currency market making.

The firm's edge comes from statistical and machine learning models that price and manage risk with minimal manual intervention, a structure that puts research and engineering talent closer to the center of the business than a discretionary trading desk would.

Research and quantitative candidates typically start with an online test covering statistics, probability, and sometimes a coding component in Python. A technical phone interview follows, going deeper into statistical reasoning, model evaluation, and sometimes a take-home or live coding exercise depending on the team.

An onsite or virtual final round commonly includes a presentation or discussion of past research, a live problem-solving session with a current researcher, and a conversation about how the candidate would approach an open-ended modeling problem with incomplete data, which mirrors the actual research work at the firm.