Recent PhD in Mathematics from USA university in NY, since Jan have been reading about Math Fin, C++ programming, brushing up on Prob/Stats, Quant interview type questions etc.. While in NY interviewed with GS, went well. Unfortunately I had to cut my interviews short as I moved with my fiancee to Chicago. I have been having a very tough time getting an interview in Chicago. I may be mistaken, but it seems that the majority of Chicago firms are looking more for technical skills related to HFT than pure quant skills. Is this an accurate assessment? If so, what advice would one give to improve my chances of landing an interview in Chicago.

Did you interview with Citadel or DRW? I believe they also hire quants. In any case, if you want to get an edge in terms of your technical skills, you should learn concurrent programming, and maybe, OS kernel programming.

I applied to Citadel but did not receive an interview. I was unaware of DRW, thank you for that. From the mathematical side of things my main problem seems to be a lack of experience in doing stat analysis on HFT data sets (my background is in PDE). Is there anyway one can self learn this?

Lots of small firms. DRW is a good choice.Also Chicago Trading Company [former O'Connor people] and Jump Trading. A friend had offers from both and considered them equal except a friend worked at Jump.UBS/O'Connor is a possilbe choice. I think it is still classed as a hedge fund.

Chicago is mostly prop trading firms. Computer Science PhDs are in demand for HFT jobs. If you have good knowledge of Finance / Economics, you can try to put in an application to Fundamental Research Group at Citadel. They do heavy PDE work.

QuoteOriginally posted by: tpoole1235Recent PhD in Mathematics from USA university in NY, since Jan have been reading about Math Fin, C++ programming, brushing up on Prob/Stats, Quant interview type questions etc.. While in NY interviewed with GS, went well. Unfortunately I had to cut my interviews short as I moved with my fiancee to Chicago. I have been having a very tough time getting an interview in Chicago. I may be mistaken, but it seems that the majority of Chicago firms are looking more for technical skills related to HFT than pure quant skills. Is this an accurate assessment? If so, what advice would one give to improve my chances of landing an interview in Chicago.The demand for pure math quants has decreased everywhere and Chicago is prop-shop territory => not too much emphasis on PhD degrees. You have to repackage yourself and come across as a programmer who is strong in several languages (might be hard given your background). If you have deep market knowledge in something like equities, or have had experience being profitable consistently in your stock trading account, a few firms would want to talk to you.Firms like Jump, DRW, CTC rely on fresh-out-of-college undergrads. There might be one or two quants in such shops but I would not try to build a career as a quant there.

Transmarket Group you could also approach

Could anyone give some names of the prop trading firms in Chicago? I only know Citadel and DRW... I am a phd in engineering and interested in programming opportunities. Thanks.

Hun Research, EWT, Gelber, Peak 6, Transmarket Group, Optiver, IMC, All Options, Alston Trading, etc