Optiver Reviews

Pros

I've worked at Optiver a long time. Every year it gets better.
- The company is managed on the basis of principles and values, not process or politics.
- Those principles and values align very nicely with mine:
-- Autonomy: there is very little hand-holding and extraordinarily high expectations of individuals in the company. The company rewards those that keep pushing those expectations higher with greater responsibility and authority.
-- Collaboration: there are a lot of great fights over the right way to approach a given problem. When we're at our best, everyone in the fight has a strong opinion but is also listening to everyone else and continually re-evaluating that opinion as new information, ideas, and opinions are expressed.
-- Prudence: the company carefully evaluates risk/reward trade-offs both when it comes to trading and technology decisions. The latest fads (cryptocurrency, esoteric programming languages, etc) are carefully evaluated, but reckless pursuit of them is frowned upon.

I'll end with a sports analogy. Working at Optiver Chicago is like playing for the Patriots or the San Antonio Spurs. It certainly isn't for everyone. But if you like competing for the championship every year and always pushing yourself to be better, there's no better team to join.

Advice to Management

Keep preaching principles, keep ensuring the best people are happy, keep pushing us to ever higher standards, and don't worry about the noise from people who should be playing for a different team anyway.

Pros

free food
free coffee
weekly massage
good 401k matching

Advice to Management

leave

Pros

Fantastic perks.

Brilliant coworkers, smartest group of people I've ever been around.

Bonuses have been great in recent years.

Work can be quite interesting and there is no red tape in between you and getting your ideas out there and implemented if they show promise. I've seen new employees hit the ground running and make significant contributions quickly.

Great trader training program.

If you are very motivated (or a genius, although I've seen some really smart people get cut) you can do really well for yourself here.

Decent hours relative to some firms in the industry, although you can get better hours elsewhere.

Pros

Transit reimbursement, paid health / dental, weekly massages, in-office barista, catered breakfast and lunch

Advice to Management

Stop setting your employees up for failure. Have more frequent performance reviews, as well as clearly defined goals. HR should also be involved more if an employee is not living up to company standards.

Pros

pretty good worklife balance

Pros

Lots of Intelligent folks
Interesting problems to solve
Good work life balance with 25 vacations a year
Casual dressing
Good Food
Fast growth

Advice to Management

Allocation of profit pool can improve
Encourage people who are doing good work
Discourage people who are not doing any work

Pros

Junior level (<5 years) compensation is extremely competitive.
The best (or at least top 3) on most products that we trade.
Smart people with not that much ego.
Pretty transparent bonus structure encourages people to help each other, promoting a friendly culture compared to other silo-ed firms (etc. Jump)

Advice to Management

Fix the cons.

Used to have a BPTW survey and I don't know why we stopped doing that. I think it was a great tool to gather what employees think.

Pros

I have worked at two large and successful companies and one smaller government position since graduating college. Working at these other companies really lets me appreciate working at Optiver and all the benefits therein.

Compensation - salary, bonus, health insurance, 25 vacation days on top of all the market holidays, and the dollar for dollar 401k match make the compensation is top tier.

Culture - incredibly strong culture. Almost everyone working here checks their ego at the door and the best ideas win. The focus is on long term growth and doing the right things not only for Optiver but for the market.

Executives /leadership - The people steering the ship at Optiver not only have great vision and insight they know their employees and hang out and have a beer on Fridays after work.

Outlook - Amazing outlook and growth. Optiver Chicago is the best at pricing options on the SP500 complex globally. Seeing the current trend of money moving into passive index funds Optiver is poised to keep growing even in a low volatility market.

Work/life balance - The after hour and weekend work here is very limited and much less than when I worked at other large companies. You are treated like a person here and if you have a family emergency people will go out of their way to cover for you.

Perks - Coffee barista, catered breakfast and lunch, huge variety of snacks and drinks, ping pong table, pool table, weekly massage, beer and wine available after work. All free.

Pros

Flat Structure
Great Office
Good Food and Company Trips
Great Compensation
Great Teambuilding Events
Fun Smart People
Opportunity to learn and develop new skills in a great environment

Advice to Management

Take time to formally train managers on how to be good managers and make good management a criteria for determining bonus awards.

Pros

People, technology, pay, work/life balance, great office

Advice to Management

Keep up the good work