Transcript

GET TO KNOW US | JANE STREET

Hi, my name is Gabe. I’m a trader in Hong Kong and I started in 2018.

WHAT DID YOU STUDY IN SCHOOL AND HOW DID IT HELP PREPARE YOU FOR A JOB AT JANE STREET?

I studied software engineering at the University of Waterloo and that gave me a lot of software development skills which are useful for my job as a trader. As part of my role, I work on a lot of automated trading systems and do a lot of code review, building software, interacting with desk devs, and other software engineers at Jane Street. And that background in software engineering really helps bring together trading and the tech at Jane Street.

WHAT CLASSES DO YOU RECOMMEND I TAKE?

I recommend taking classes firstly in statistics. At Jane Street, we do a lot of quantitative modeling and familiarity with basic statistics and probability is quite helpful. Aside from that, as part of my role, I use a lot of Python for data science to do a lot of modeling. So familiarity with basic computer science and modeling techniques is also quite helpful.

WHAT CAN I EXPECT FROM THE JANE STREET INTERNSHIP PROGRAM?

Each office has some nuance around how the trading internship is structured and it’s always being improved. In Hong Kong, the trading internship has three main components. The first are the classes, where we give you an introduction to concepts important to trading — things like what are stocks, what are bonds, statistics, or concepts like adverse selection and market impact. The second component is mock trading. This is designed to mimic what trading looks like in the real world and also give you an exposure to the diversity of trading that we run as a firm. There’ll be short mocks a few hours in length that are designed to illustrate specific trading concepts and also longer mocks around a week in length where you’ll get to do modeling and research and trade based on your findings, or also write algorithmic trading systems that can trade on their own. The third component is the project work. As part of your project, you’ll be paired up with a full-time trader and together you’ll investigate interesting market phenomena and dig into ways to improve our firm’s modeling and trading.

WHAT TYPE OF TRAINING DO NEW TRADERS GO THROUGH?

New traders at Jane Street go through a period of structured training. There are a few weeks of OCaml and Python bootcamp where you learn how to code in OCaml and Python, how to do modeling and data science. After that, there are the teach-ins which are a deeper dive into how the various trading desks at Jane Street think about the products that they’re trading and kind of the distinctions between trading desks and what makes trading, bonds, equities, and options all unique. The majority of the training is on the job. You’ll learn from experienced traders around you about how the desk trades day-to-day tasks and how to do projects. And as you pick up more and more things, you’ll just be given naturally more and more responsibilities.

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO FEEL FULLY INTEGRATED INTO THE WORK AS A FULL-TIME TRADER?

As a full time trader, I felt like I was having real responsibilities and having real impact to our trading pretty early on. A few weeks into my career, I started retraining a model and that got rolled out into production a few months later. And so something I built within my first few months at Jane Street was actively trading.

WHAT IS YOUR DAY-TO-DAY LIKE?

On a typical day, I’ll get in around 7:45 AM, make sure all our systems are up and running and watch trading, particularly when it’s busiest. And that usually happens around the open. When trading is quiet for the rest of the day, I’ll spend my time trying to improve our trading systems and improve our modeling. So this could mean thinking about emails or doing code review, writing new algorithmic systems, doing modeling research, or working with devs and researchers to push projects forward.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT WORKING AT JANE STREET?

My favorite thing about working at Jane Street, aside from dim sum for breakfast, has got to be the people that I work with. I have the privilege of working with lots of smart people that I can trust. It’s always fun bouncing ideas off of each other, discussing trades, and working together to build up Jane Street.