Finance · 16 min read · ~31 min study · advanced

Optiver Interview Guide

Mental maths test, trading games, technical rounds — with real questions and prep tips.

16 min read ~31 min study advanced options #interviews#optiver 20 learning outcomes

Optiver Interview: Process, Questions & Preparation Guide 2026

A complete guide to interviewing at Optiver for trading, quant research, and technology roles - with real questions from the mental maths test, trading games, and technical rounds.

What Makes Optiver Interviews Different

Optiver's interview process is one of the most demanding in the trading industry. Unlike most quant firms that lead with probability puzzles and coding tests, Optiver opens with a timed mental arithmetic exam that eliminates roughly 80% of applicants before they ever speak to a human. If you can't multiply three-digit numbers in your head at speed, you won't get past the first round.

Founded in Amsterdam in 1986, Optiver is a global market maker that trades on virtually every major exchange. They handle millions of transactions daily across equities, options, ETFs, bonds, and commodities from offices in Amsterdam, Chicago, Sydney, New York, and Shanghai. The firm is known for its engineering-driven culture and its obsession with speed - both in execution latency and in how fast its people can think.

This guide covers the full interview process, the types of questions you'll face, and how to prepare. If you're also applying to other quant firms, our quant interview questions guide covers broader preparation across the industry.

The Optiver Interview Process

The full process typically takes 4 to 8 weeks from application to offer, though it can move faster for strong candidates. Here's the standard pipeline:

Stage 1 - Online Numerical Test (Week 1) An 8-minute timed test with 80 mental arithmetic questions. You'll add, subtract, multiply, and divide numbers with increasing difficulty. The pass rate is low - Optiver expects near-perfect accuracy at very high speed.

Stage 2 - Phone Screen (Week 2-3) A 30 to 45 minute call with a recruiter or team member. Expect a mix of motivational questions ("Why Optiver? Why market making?") and light technical questions. For trading roles, you may get probability questions or a quick mental maths drill.

Stage 3 - Assessment Day (Week 3-5) A half-day at the office (or virtual equivalent) with multiple rounds. This typically includes a harder maths test, a trading simulation or market making game, a technical interview (probability, statistics, or coding depending on the role), and a behavioral interview.

Stage 4 - Final Round (Week 5-8) Senior interviews focusing on trading intuition, cultural fit, and more advanced technical problems. For trading roles, expect deeper questions on options pricing, risk management, and how you handle uncertainty.

Optiver moves quickly once they're interested. If you don't hear back within a week of any stage, it's reasonable to follow up.

The Mental Maths Test

This is the part everyone talks about - and for good reason. Optiver's online numerical test is a timed sprint through 80 arithmetic questions in 8 minutes. That's 6 seconds per question. The questions start simple and escalate:

Easy: 7 + 13, 45 - 18, 8 × 6
Medium: 23 × 17, 456 + 789, 1200 / 48
Hard: 67 × 43, 8.5 × 14.4, 3456 - 1789

You need both speed and accuracy. Getting 60 out of 80 correct is generally considered a pass, but competitive candidates score 70+. The test is adaptive at some stages, meaning it adjusts difficulty based on your performance.

Mental Maths Practice Questions

Try these under timed conditions - give yourself 6 seconds each:

37 × 13 = ? Break it down: 37 × 10 = 370, 37 × 3 = 111, total = 481
84 × 26 = ? Use: 84 × 25 = 2100, 84 × 1 = 84, total = 2184
1728 / 12 = ? 12 × 144 = 1728, so the answer is 144
456 + 378 = ? 456 + 400 = 856, minus 22 = 834
63 × 47 = ? Use: 63 × 50 = 3150, minus 63 × 3 = 189, total = 2961
2.5 × 3.6 = ? Think: 25 × 36 = 900, move decimals = 9.0
5600 / 35 = ? 35 × 160 = 5600, so 160
88 × 12 = ? 88 × 10 = 880, 88 × 2 = 176, total = 1056

The key technique is to decompose problems into easier parts. Multiply by rounding to the nearest 10 or 25, then adjust. For division, ask yourself what multiplied by the divisor gives the dividend.

Roles and How Interviews Differ

Optiver hires across four main technical tracks. The core arithmetic and probability testing is common to all, but the later rounds diverge significantly.

Trader

The most competitive track. After the maths test, traders face probability questions, options pricing theory, market making simulations, and extensive trading games. Interviewers look for quick decision-making under uncertainty, intellectual curiosity, and composure. You don't need a finance degree, but you do need strong quantitative reasoning and a willingness to take calculated risks.

Quantitative Researcher

Quant researchers get deeper statistical and mathematical questions. Expect time series analysis, regression, hypothesis testing, and potentially questions on signal processing or machine learning. If you're interested in this path, our guide to becoming a quant covers the educational background you'll need.

Software Engineer

Software engineers face standard algorithmic coding interviews alongside the mental maths test. Expect data structures, algorithms, system design, and questions about low-latency programming. C++ and Python are the primary languages. Optiver cares deeply about performance-critical code - you may be asked about cache behavior, memory allocation, or lock-free data structures.

FPGA Engineer

A more specialized track focusing on hardware description languages (VHDL or Verilog), digital logic design, and low-latency networking. These interviews are highly technical and specific to the domain.

Types of Questions You'll Face

Beyond the initial maths test, Optiver interviews cover several question categories depending on your role.

Probability and Expected Value

These come up in every technical round for trading and research roles. They test whether you can reason about uncertainty quickly and correctly. Our probability fundamentals article covers the essential theory.

Example: You roll two dice and multiply the results. What's the expected value?

Approach: E[X × Y] = E[X] × E[Y] when X and Y are independent. E[single die] = 3.5. So E[product] = 3.5 × 3.5 = 12.25.

Example: You flip a coin repeatedly. You win $170,000 for heads and lose $120,000 for tails. What's the expected value per flip, and would you play?

Approach: E = 0.5(2) + 0.5(-1) = $290,000 per flip. Yes, you'd play - it's positive expected value.

Market Making and Pricing

These questions test whether you understand how market makers think about risk and inventory.

Example: I tell you a jar contains between 500 and 1500 marbles. Make me a market (bid-ask) on the number of marbles.

Approach: Your fair value estimate is 1000 (midpoint). Start with a wide spread - maybe 800 at 1200. The interviewer will trade with you. Adjust your estimate based on whether they buy or sell, and tighten your spread as you gain information. If they keep buying, your estimate should shift upward.

Example: You're market making on a stock currently at $450,000. A news event has a 60% chance of being positive (stock goes to $450,000) and a 40% chance of being negative (stock goes to $450,000). Where do you set your bid and ask?

Approach: Fair value = 0.6(55) + 0.4(42) = 33 + 16.8 = $450,000. Your spread should be wide enough to protect against adverse selection but narrow enough to attract flow. Something like $450,000 at $450,000 would be reasonable - you'd explain your reasoning about the asymmetric risk.

Trading Games and Simulations

The trading game is often the highlight of Optiver's assessment day. You'll typically be placed in a simulated market with other candidates, given a product to trade, and judged on your P&L, risk management, and behavior.

Common formats include:

Card-based games: A deck of cards represents uncertain information. You trade a "stock" whose value depends on the cards revealed. You need to update your fair value estimate as new information arrives and manage your position.
Multi-round simulations: You trade over multiple rounds with new information each round. The game tests whether you can keep a clear head, manage inventory, and avoid getting picked off.
Competitive market making: You and other candidates simultaneously quote bid-ask spreads. The best spreads get filled. You need to balance being competitive on spread with managing risk.

The most important thing in trading games isn't finishing with the highest P&L. Interviewers watch how you think, how you update beliefs, and whether you stay disciplined. Panicking after a loss or becoming reckless after a win are both red flags.

Coding Questions (Engineering Roles)

Software engineers face LeetCode-style problems plus systems questions:

Example: Implement an order book that supports limit orders, market orders, and cancellations. What data structures would you use for O(1) best bid/ask lookup?

Approach: Use a sorted map (or balanced BST) keyed by price level, with each level holding a queue of orders. Maintain pointers to best bid and best ask. For cancellations, use a hash map from order ID to its location in the book.

How to Prepare

Preparing for Optiver requires a different approach from standard tech or finance interviews. Here's what actually works.

Mental Maths (Start 4-6 Weeks Before)

This is non-negotiable. Practice every single day.

Use Zetamac or similar speed arithmetic trainers. Start with the default settings and work toward completing 80+ questions in 8 minutes with over 90% accuracy.
Drill multiplication tables up to 20 × 20 from memory.
Practice squaring two-digit numbers: 37² = (40 - 3)² = 1600 - 240 + 9 = 1369.
Learn to multiply by breaking numbers apart: 67 × 43 = 67 × 40 + 67 × 3 = 2680 + 201 = 2881.
For division, build intuition for common factorisations: know that 144 = 12², 225 = 15², and so on.

Probability and Statistics (2-4 Weeks Before)

Work through classic quant interview questions focusing on expected value, conditional probability, and Bayes' theorem. Make sure you can solve problems like the Monty Hall problem, the birthday paradox, and the gambler's ruin without hesitation.

Trading Intuition (2-3 Weeks Before)

Read about how market making works. Understand bid-ask spreads, inventory risk, and adverse selection. Our quant trading strategies article covers the fundamentals. Play poker if you don't already - the skills of reading incomplete information, managing risk, and making +EV decisions under uncertainty translate directly.

Mock Interviews (1-2 Weeks Before)

Practice with friends. Have someone fire rapid mental maths questions at you. Simulate trading games with cards. The pressure of performing in front of someone else is genuinely different from solo practice.

What Optiver Looks For

Beyond raw technical ability, Optiver evaluates several traits consistently:

Speed of thought - Can you process information and reach a conclusion quickly? This matters more at Optiver than at almost any other firm.
Intellectual curiosity - Do you ask good questions? Do you probe deeper when something doesn't make sense?
Composure under pressure - How do you react when you're wrong, when you're losing money in a game, or when a question is beyond your current knowledge?
Collaborative mindset - Market making is a team sport. Optiver wants people who communicate clearly and work well with others, not lone wolves.
Calibrated confidence - Know what you know, and be honest about what you don't. Bluffing is worse than admitting uncertainty.

Frequently Asked Questions

How hard is the Optiver maths test?

The Optiver maths test is significantly harder than it sounds. While the individual questions are basic arithmetic, the combination of speed (6 seconds per question), volume (80 questions), and escalating difficulty makes it a genuine challenge. Most candidates who haven't specifically prepared will struggle to pass. Daily practice with speed arithmetic tools for at least 3 to 4 weeks is the minimum preparation most successful candidates report.

Do I need a finance background to interview at Optiver?

No. Optiver hires from mathematics, physics, computer science, engineering, and other quantitative disciplines. Many successful traders have no formal finance education. What matters is quantitative reasoning ability, speed of thought, and intellectual curiosity. That said, understanding basic options concepts and market making principles will help in later interview rounds.

What programming languages does Optiver use?

Optiver's technology stack is primarily C++ for performance-critical trading systems, with Python used for research, data analysis, and tooling. FPGA engineers work with VHDL or Verilog. For software engineering interviews, you'll typically code in C++ or Python, though the focus is on problem-solving rather than language-specific syntax.

How long does the Optiver interview process take?

The full process typically runs 4 to 8 weeks from initial application to final offer. The online maths test result comes within a few days. Phone screens are usually scheduled within a week of passing the test. Assessment days and final rounds depend on scheduling availability, but Optiver generally moves quickly once you're in the pipeline.

Can I retake the Optiver maths test if I fail?

Optiver typically enforces a cooldown period of 6 to 12 months before you can reapply and retake the test. Use that time productively - consistent daily practice with Zetamac or similar tools will make a measurable difference. Many candidates who fail on their first attempt pass comfortably on their second after focused preparation.

How does Optiver's interview compare to Jane Street or Citadel?

All three firms are demanding, but the emphasis differs. Optiver places uniquely heavy weight on raw arithmetic speed through its maths test. Jane Street is known for longer, more open-ended probability and estimation problems with extended back-and-forth discussion. Citadel's process varies more by team but often includes heavier coding components. Our quant interview questions guide covers preparation strategies that work across all three.

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What You Will Learn

Explain what makes pn0 interviews different.
Build the pn0 interview process.
Calibrate the mental maths test.
Compute roles and how interviews differ.
Design types of questions you'll face.
Implement how to prepare.

Prerequisites

Derivatives intuition — see Derivatives intuition.
Options Greeks — see Options Greeks.
Comfort reading code and basic statistical notation.
Curiosity about how the topic shows up in a US trading firm.

Mental Model

Markets are auctions for risk. Every product, model, and strategy in this section is a way of pricing or transferring some piece of risk between counterparties — and US markets give you the deepest, most regulated, most algorithmic version of that auction in the world. For Optiver Interview Guide, frame the topic as the piece that mental maths test, trading games, technical rounds — with real questions and prep tips — and ask what would break if you removed it from the workflow.

Why This Matters in US Markets

US markets are the deepest, most algorithmic, most regulated capital markets in the world. The SEC, CFTC, FINRA, and Federal Reserve govern equities, options, futures, treasuries, and OTC derivatives. The big buy-side (Bridgewater, AQR, Citadel, Two Sigma, Renaissance) and the major sell-side (GS, MS, JPM, Citi, BofA) hire heavily against the material in this section.

In US markets, Optiver Interview Guide tends to surface during onboarding, code review, and the first incident a junior quant gets pulled into. Questions on this material recur in interviews at Citadel, Two Sigma, Jane Street, HRT, Jump, DRW, IMC, Optiver, and the major bulge-bracket banks.

Common Mistakes

Quoting risk-free rates without saying which curve (T-bill, OIS, fed funds futures).
Treating implied volatility as a forecast instead of a market-clearing quantity.
Using realized correlation as a hedge ratio without accounting for regime change.
Treating Optiver Interview Guide as a one-off topic rather than the foundation it becomes once you ship code.
Skipping the US-market context — copying European or Asian conventions and getting bitten by US tick sizes, settlement, or regulator expectations.
Optimizing for elegance instead of auditability; trading regulators care about reproducibility, not cleverness.
Confusing model output with reality — the tape is the source of truth, the model is a hypothesis.

Practice Questions

Compute the delta of an at-the-money call on SPY with one month to expiry under Black-Scholes (σ=18%, r=5%).
Why does the implied volatility surface for SPX exhibit a skew rather than a flat smile?
Define the Sharpe ratio and explain why it is annualized.
Why does delta-hedging a sold straddle on SPY produce P&L proportional to realized minus implied variance?
What does a 100 bps move in the 10-year Treasury yield typically do to a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate?

Answers and Explanations

Δ = N(d1) where d1 = (ln(S/K) + (r + σ²/2)T) / (σ√T). With S=K, T=1/12, σ=0.18, r=0.05: d1 ≈ (0 + (0.05 + 0.0162)·0.0833) / (0.18·0.2887) ≈ 0.106; N(0.106) ≈ 0.542. Delta ≈ 0.54.
Because investors pay a premium for downside protection (left tail) and equity returns are negatively correlated with volatility; out-of-the-money puts therefore trade rich relative to OTM calls.
Sharpe = (excess return) / (volatility). Annualization (multiply by √252 for daily returns) puts strategies of different frequencies on comparable footing — a key requirement for comparing US asset managers.
Because the hedger captures gamma·dS² over time; integrating gives Σ gamma·(dS)², and theta paid over the life is set by implied variance. Net P&L tracks σ_realized² − σ_implied² scaled by gamma exposure.
Roughly 75-100 bps move the same direction; mortgages are priced off the 10y plus a spread that includes prepayment risk and originator margin, which both move with rates.

Glossary

Delta — first derivative of option price with respect to underlying.
Gamma — second derivative; rate of change of delta.
Vega — sensitivity of option price to implied volatility.
Theta — time decay; daily P&L from holding the option as expiry approaches.
Implied volatility — the σ that, when plugged into Black-Scholes, recovers the market price.
Skew — variation of implied volatility across strikes.
Spread — the difference between two prices; a yield curve, an option spread, or a cross-instrument arb.
Sharpe ratio — annualized excess return divided by annualized volatility; the standard performance metric in US asset management.

Further Study Path

Understanding Financial Markets — Equity, fixed income, FX, derivatives — how markets actually work and where quants fit in.
Time Value of Money — Present value, future value, discounting, NPV — the concept that underpins all of finance.
Bonds and Fixed Income — Pricing, yield to maturity, duration, convexity — the fixed-income concepts behind interest-rate modeling.
Python for Quant Finance: Fundamentals — Variables, functions, data structures, classes, and error handling — the core Python every quant role expects.
Advanced Python for Financial Applications — Decorators, generators, and context managers — the patterns that separate beginner Python from production quant code.

Key Learning Outcomes

Explain what makes pn0 interviews different.
Apply the pn0 interview process.
Recognize the mental maths test.
Describe roles and how interviews differ.
Walk through types of questions you'll face.
Identify how to prepare.
Articulate what pn0 looks for.
Trace interviews as it applies to pn0 interview guide.
Map pn0 as it applies to pn0 interview guide.
Pinpoint how pn0 interview guide surfaces at Citadel, Two Sigma, Jane Street, or HRT.
Explain the US regulatory framing — SEC, CFTC, FINRA — relevant to pn0 interview guide.
Apply a single-paragraph elevator pitch for pn0 interview guide suitable for an interviewer.
Recognize one common production failure mode of the techniques in pn0 interview guide.
Describe when pn0 interview guide is the wrong tool and what to use instead.
Walk through how pn0 interview guide interacts with the order management and risk gates in a US trading stack.
Identify a back-of-the-envelope sanity check that proves your implementation of pn0 interview guide is roughly right.
Articulate which US firms publicly hire against the skills covered in pn0 interview guide.
Trace a follow-up topic from this knowledge base that deepens pn0 interview guide.
Map how pn0 interview guide would appear on a phone screen or onsite interview at a US quant shop.
Pinpoint the day-one mistake a junior would make on pn0 interview guide and the senior's fix.