Software Developer Internship

Applications for Optiver's 2024-2025 internship and graduate positions have now closed. However, we're constantly looking for strong analytical minds to join our renowned internship and graduate programs.
Submit your 'Expression of Interest' to be the first to know when our career opportunities re-open. We'll be in touch as soon as a role that matches your skill set, becomes available.

Led by our in-house education team that consists of ex-traders and developers, Optiver's 12-week software developer internship program will equip you with practical skills, invaluable knowledge and technical tools that'll set you up for success.

With guidance from your mentor and team, you'll lead entrepreneurial projects to solve complex challenges that deliver immediate impact. In just a few weeks, you’ll develop latency-critical applications that contribute towards our trading success. Plus, if you’ve excelled over the summer, you could receive an offer to return as a Graduate Software Developer.

Who we are

Optiver is a global tech-driven trading firm, with offices in Amsterdam, Sydney, London, Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, Chicago and Austin. Founded in 1986, today we are a leading liquidity provider, with close to 2,000 employees in offices around the world, united in our commitment to improve the market through competitive pricing, execution and risk management. By providing liquidity on multiple exchanges across the world in various financial instruments we participate in the safeguarding of healthy and efficient markets. We provide liquidity to financial markets using our own capital, at our own risk, trading a wide range of products: listed derivatives, cash equities, ETFs, bonds and foreign currencies.

Optiver’s Sydney office is one of the primary players within Asian markets, trading a range of products. Established in 1996, we're an active participant on the Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan exchanges, and act as Optiver’s APAC head office.

What you’ll do

No previous experience in trading or financial markets? You bring the passion and we'll have the training to support you along the way.

As our Software Developer Intern, you'll take ownership of critical projects right from the start. Whether it's developing ultra-low latency exchange protocol encoders and decoders, or fine-tuning our automated trading strategies and pricing models, your goal is to find the simplest and cleanest solution to the problem at hand.

You’ll experience the excitement of a fast-paced development cycle – owning a tight feedback loop, testing and shipping your code to production. You could be working on a change to a trading system in the morning and see it running live in the afternoon. Our collaborative culture means you’ll work closely with traders and other developers to identify and solve problems that make a tangible impact on the business.

By the end of the internship, you’ll have learnt the ins-and-outs of our trading systems and the engineering concepts that make them successful.

Aside from technical skills, our dedicated Head of IT Education will also work with you on your development, including:

• Workshops on a variety of tech-based topics, along with soft skills to support your holistic growth as a developer.
• A dedicated mentor who will guide you through our development process and how our trading systems work
• Trader training to get you up to speed on our business. This helps you understand the fundamentals of trading, enabling you to make an impact from the early stages of your Optiver career.

Discover the exciting projects you could work on during your internship.

• Read Nicole's story on working in our Statistical and Index Arbitrage team to develop position-taking strategies that predict price moves.
• Read Brenda’s story on delivering low-latency, high-throughput systems that improve our connectivity to the financial market.
• Read Richard’s story on navigating the world of automated trading – systems that make trading decisions.
• Read Marcus’ story on working in the risk and treasury team, where he monitors systems that manage and mitigate risk (e.g. trading risk).
• Read Lena’s story on production engineering, where they build tools and systems that enable us to trade smoothly.

Who you are

You’re a problem solver at heart, who's insatiably curious and driven to succeed. You’re:

• Keen to create high-performing, low latency designs that critically impact trading success
• Curious to learn and comfortable discussing/exploring complex technical ideas
• You have a range of out-of-classroom projects or extra-curricular activities that demonstrates your passion in technology, particularly software development
• Excited to work alongside the best developers and traders in the industry, with the humility to continually upskill and improve yourself
• Knowledgeable about object oriented design and development concepts (experience with C++, C#, Java or Rust is required for our technical assessment)

What you’ll get

• The chance to work alongside diverse and intelligent peers in a rewarding environment
• Competitive remuneration
• Training, mentorship and personal development opportunities
• Gym membership plus weekly in-house chair massages
• Daily breakfast, lunch and an in-house barista
• Regular social events
• Accommodation for the entirety of the internship, and flights where necessary

As an intentionally flat organisation, we believe that great ideas and impact can come from everyone. We are passionate about empowering individuals and creating diverse teams that thrive. Every person at Optiver should feel included, valued and respected, because we believe our best work is done together.

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion is hardwired through every stage of our hiring process. We encourage applications from candidates from any and all backgrounds, and we welcome requests for reasonable adjustments during the process to ensure that you can best demonstrate your abilities.

Eligibility

• A penultimate or pre-penultimate university student
• Studying a Computer Science, Software/Electrical/Mechatronic Engineering or similarly technical degree
• An Australian or New Zealand Citizen, Australian Permanent Resident or able to provide evidence of full working rights

If you have any questions regarding this opportunity, please contact us at careers@optiver.com.au.