The Optiver trading interview is built around one famous gate: a timed mental-math test that filters most candidates before they ever speak to a trader. Optiver is a market-making firm — it makes money quoting tight two-sided prices and managing risk across thousands of instruments — and the interview is engineered to feel like the job. It rewards arithmetic speed, expected-value discipline, and composure under repeated pressure. This page covers the full process end-to-end, what each round tests, the question types you will see, the firm-specific nuances, and a multi-week prep plan tuned to the loop.
The full process, end to end
A typical Optiver trader pipeline runs like this:
- Application and online assessment. Most candidates start with an online numerical assessment. The centerpiece is the timed arithmetic test — commonly described as roughly 80 questions in 8 minutes — covering multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, and percentages with negatives mixed in, often alongside a sequencing or pattern-recognition section. This stage filters aggressively on raw speed.
- Recruiter conversation (20–30 min). A recruiter walks through the loop, confirms interest and timing, and covers your background and why trading. Fit-and-logistics, with a light touch of "how do you think about risk."
- Numerical and probability round (30–45 min). A trader-led round mixing more mental math, expected-value problems, and probability brainteasers. Usually conversational — they want your reasoning, not just the answer.
- Market-making game(s) (45–60 min). The signature round. You make two-sided markets on a hidden quantity, the interviewer trades against your quotes, new information arrives, and you requote while tracking position and P&L. Some loops run more than one.
- Coding / automated-trading round (some roles). For quant-trader roles with a development lean, and for trading-research or quant-developer seats, expect a Python or C++ screen — often a simulation or data task, not pure LeetCode.
- Final / superday and offer. A cluster of rounds combining a deeper market-making or probability conversation with behavioral and team-fit, then a level and offer discussion. Optiver hires globally (Amsterdam, Chicago, Sydney), with a broadly consistent loop across desks.
The whole pipeline runs three to eight weeks for most candidates.
What the rounds actually test
Optiver is filtering for a narrow profile, and every round maps to it:
- Arithmetic speed. The timed test is a hard, near-binary gate. The job requires updating prices in milliseconds; if three-digit arithmetic slows you down, you cannot trade. Speed is the entry ticket, not a nice-to-have.
- Accuracy under speed. Fast-and-wrong loses to medium-and-right; slow loses to both. The test scores correct answers under a clock, so reckless guessing is punished as much as slowness.
- Expected-value discipline. In every market-making and probability round, the question behind the question is: what is this worth, and how much spread do I charge for the chance I am wrong? Can you adjust that spread as information arrives?
- Risk and P&L awareness. Optiver wants traders who always know whether they are long or short and up or down. Losing track of your position in a market-making game is a major negative signal.
- Composure. Traders watch for tilt — visibly rattled by a losing trade, a missed multiplication, or an aggressive counterparty. Resetting cleanly after a bad outcome is itself a scored behavior.
There is no published pass rate, but Optiver — like its peers — takes a small fraction of candidates who reach the trading rounds.
Question types by round
The timed mental-math test
This is the round Optiver is famous for. The format most commonly reported is around 80 questions in 8 minutes — roughly six seconds each — spanning:
- Two-digit (and harder) multiplication — 37 x 48, 84 x 76, often with a negative operand.
- Division with decimals — 1,237 / 47 to a couple of decimal places, fast.
- Fractions and percentages — 7/13 as a decimal, 17% of 1,240, conversions both ways.
- Mixed-sign arithmetic — negatives sprinkled throughout so you cannot autopilot.
You are racing the clock, and most candidates do not finish. Scoring rewards a high count of correct answers, so the winning strategy is a fast, reliable rhythm rather than perfectionism on any single problem. There is a hard cutoff and a top-tier score is non-negotiable, but it is pure trainable mechanics — the single highest-leverage thing to drill.
Market-making games
The canonical format: the interviewer names a quantity with some true distribution — "the sum of two dice," "the number of countries in Africa," "the windows on the building across the street" — and you quote a two-sided market (a bid and an ask) you will trade at. You set it wide enough to avoid being picked off, tight enough to show confidence: "Sum of two dice — 6 at 9." The interviewer trades ("I lift your offer" — they buy at 9, leaving you short), then feeds new information ("one die is a 4," so the expected sum is now 4 + 3.5 = 7.5). You reassess P&L and requote, adjusting your spread to your confidence, and the loop repeats until they end the game.
The interviewer grades initial-quote quality, how fast you integrate new information, whether you always know your running position and P&L, and whether you stay composed after a losing trade. It is a repeated game about edge and information flow, not a pricing exam with a single right answer.
EV and probability
Layered into the numerical round and the superday:
- Expected value of a game — "You pay to roll a die and receive the face value in dollars. What is the most you should pay?" (3.5.)
- Sequential decisions — optimal stopping ("see numbers one at a time, pick one") and bet-sizing problems.
- Conditional probability and Bayes — disease-test false-positive setups, urn draws, coin-bias estimation.
- Brainteasers with a twist — expected flips to see three heads in a row, light-bulbs-and-switches, weighing puzzles — testing clean structured reasoning, not memorized answers.
Coding / automated trading (some roles)
For trader roles with a development lean, and for quant-developer and trading-research seats, Optiver runs a Python or C++ coding screen — usually a small simulation or data task with a trading flavor (simulate a simple order book, compute a rolling statistic, run a strategy over a tick stream) rather than abstract LeetCode. The bar is clean, correct, efficient code and reasoning about edge cases out loud. Pure-trader loops may skip it — confirm your role's format with your recruiter.
Firm-specific nuances
A few things set the Optiver loop apart from peers:
- The math gate comes first and is brutal. Unlike firms that test arithmetic implicitly inside EV problems, Optiver puts a standalone timed test up front and cuts hard on it. If you do not clear it, nothing else matters.
- Market-making is weighted heavily. Optiver is a pure market maker, and the trading game is where offers are won. Reading about it is not enough — you must drill it out loud as a live repeated game.
- Speed-and-discipline culture, not credentials. Optiver heavily recruits strong undergraduates and requires no finance background or graduate degree; olympiad-adjacent reasoning and raw arithmetic speed carry more weight than coursework.
- Global, broadly consistent loop. Amsterdam, Chicago, or Sydney, the shape — timed test, probability, market-making, possibly coding — is similar, though desk culture and coding emphasis vary.
A multi-week preparation plan
Weeks 1–2 — Own the arithmetic gate. Daily timed mental-math drills. Use Arithmetic Zetamac (two-digit multiplication, division, percentages) and Optiver-style "80 in 8" sets that include negatives. Target a top-tier Zetamac score and a clean six-second-per-question rhythm before moving on. This is the highest-leverage block of the plan.
Weeks 3–4 — Market-making and EV. Drill market-making games out loud with a partner or a drill that takes the other side — quote, get hit or lifted, integrate new information, requote, track P&L. In parallel, drill 5–10 EV and probability problems a day from Heard on the Street and a quant question bank, until framing any new problem as an expected value is automatic.
Weeks 5–6 — Probability depth and brainteasers. Push into harder conditional-probability, sequential-decision, and Bayes problems, plus a steady diet of structured brainteasers. Keep a daily timed-arithmetic warm-up so the gate skill does not decay.
Week 7 (and coding-track candidates) — Coding and full mocks. If your role includes a coding screen, drill small Python or C++ simulation and data tasks (order book, rolling stats, simple strategy). For everyone, run 3–5 full mock loops a day chaining a timed math block, a probability round, and a live market-making game. Optiver's loop is fatigue-inducing; build stamina to stay sharp in round five.
The single biggest differentiator is raw mental-math speed, and candidates underinvest because the drills are boring. Boring is the point.
How to practice for the Optiver loop
InterviewDen's quant-trading track simulates the Optiver loop end-to-end. The mental-math module runs against a ratcheting timer so you can push toward an 80-in-8 pace, including the negative-number and division shapes Optiver uses. The market-making module runs the full live flow — you name a two-sided market out loud, the AI trades against your quotes, new information arrives, and you requote while it tracks your running position and P&L. The EV and probability rounds ask live follow-ups the way a trader would, and the scored debrief flags exactly what Optiver grades: hesitation, quoting too tight, losing track of P&L, and panic-widening after a bad trade. It is voice-driven and free to start, so you rehearse the actual skill — quoting and computing out loud under pressure.
For the full breakdown of mental-math bars, market-making mechanics, and EV taxonomy across firms, read the quant trading interview guide, and warm up on the exact problem shapes with the quant trading brainteasers. When you are ready, run an Optiver-style trading mock and get a scored debrief on speed, EV discipline, and composure.
Common mistakes
- Underdrilling the timed test. It is the gate, and it is pure trainable mechanics. Candidates who treat it as an afterthought get cut before the interesting rounds.
- Quoting markets too tight. Nervous candidates quote a one-wide market to look confident and get picked off. Wider-but-defensible is a better signal than falsely tight.
- Losing track of P&L. By the fifth trade in a market-making game you must know your running position and whether you are up or down. Candidates who lose the thread cannot make rational updates.
- Freezing on a wrong answer. If you miscompute and realize it, say "recomputing" and redo it cleanly. Sitting silent reads as tilt.
- Over-explaining brainteasers. A clean setup an interviewer can follow in a minute beats a five-minute meandering monologue.
- Treating market-making like a pricing exam. It is a repeated game about edge and information flow, not a hunt for the one true number.
FAQ
How hard is the Optiver mental math test?
It is one of the hardest standardized arithmetic screens in trading recruiting — commonly described as around 80 questions in 8 minutes (roughly six seconds each), spanning multiplication, division, fractions, percentages, and negatives. Most candidates do not finish, and there is a hard cutoff. The good news: it is pure trainable mechanics, and weeks of daily timed drilling (Zetamac plus "80 in 8" sets) move your score reliably.
What is a good score on the Optiver math test?
Optiver does not publish its cutoff, but the practical target is to clear well past the midpoint of the question set with high accuracy, since the test rewards correct answers under the clock. A useful proxy is a top-tier Arithmetic Zetamac score (well into the 100+ range on the standard two-minute setting) plus comfort handling negatives and division at speed.
Does Optiver require a coding interview?
It depends on the role. Pure-trader loops may not include coding, while quant-trader roles with a development lean — plus quant-developer and trading-research seats — usually do, typically a Python or C++ screen built around a simulation or data task rather than abstract LeetCode. Confirm the format for your role with your recruiter.
How does Optiver market making work in the interview?
The interviewer names a quantity with a hidden value, you quote a two-sided market (bid and ask) you will trade at, and they buy or sell against you. New information then arrives and you requote, adjusting your spread to your confidence while tracking position and P&L. They grade quote quality, update speed, risk awareness, and composure — it is a repeated game about edge, not a single-answer pricing problem.
Do I need a finance background to interview at Optiver?
No. Optiver heavily recruits strong undergraduates from math, physics, computer science, and engineering, and requires no finance coursework or graduate degree. The filter is raw reasoning, arithmetic speed, and risk discipline — olympiad-adjacent problem-solving carries more weight than a finance major.
How long is the Optiver interview process?
Three to eight weeks is typical: online assessment (including the timed math test), recruiter conversation, a probability round, one or more market-making games, possibly a coding screen, and a final/superday with an offer discussion. Intern loops can compress into a single superday; multi-round full-time onsites take longer to schedule.
Is the Optiver interview harder than Jane Street?
Both are extremely competitive but weight things differently. Optiver leans harder on the standalone timed arithmetic gate and is a pure market maker, so raw speed and the trading game dominate. Jane Street emphasizes clean reasoning and estimation with a lighter standardized-math gate. If arithmetic speed is your strength, Optiver plays to it; if you reason well but compute at a normal pace, Jane Street's style may suit you better.