Highlight:
You will start in the Akuna Capital Sydney office as a Junior Quant Trader in the derivatives trading domain.
This is a unique opportunity, as the trader training program for this role will take place in Akuna's Chicago headquarters.
Once your training is complete, you will return to Akuna’s Sydney office to trade full-time on one of our trading desks.
The role will provide you with:
- a systematic educational program to help you develop quickly, and
- a global vision and work experience to extend your knowledge on international markets across a diverse set of asset classes, and
- a welcoming and supportive culture with a strong emphasis on collaboration and employee growth.
Timeline:
- Application Deadline: April 1, Wed, 2026, Sydney Local Time
- Interview Round 1 (Options 201 course, please refer to below section for further details): April 6, Mon – April 8, Wed, 2026
- Final Round Interview: April 10, Fri – April 24, Fri, 2026
- Start Date: your start date is expected in August 2026 based on visa condition
- Chicago Training: starting August 24, 2026
What you'll do as a Junior Quant Trader at Akuna Sydney office:
Our traders are bright, well-rounded thinkers, competitive, and ambitious! Joining us as a Junior Quant Trader means you don't need to have any finance or trading experience. We are looking for individuals with potential, a desire to compete and drive to create immediate impact in our firm.
Akuna Capital is an innovative trading firm with a strong focus on collaboration, cutting-edge technology, data driven solutions, and automation. Our Juniors are trusted with increasingly more responsibility as well as the opportunity to advance quickly in their career. We have brilliant young people leading some of our largest desks and have several emerging desks in growth phase.
We’re committed to providing collaborative and valuable mentorship from our experienced Traders that will help you hit the ground running, build expertise, and make an immediate impact on the business.
What you can expect after applying:
- Apply for this role with your most updated resume by April 1, 2026
- Suitable candidates will be invited to join our Options 201 course - April 6 to April 8, 2026 – approx. 1.5 hrs per day commencing at 8:30am Sydney Local Time.
- Top performers will be expedited to final round interviews during April 10 to April 24
- You can expect to hear from your recruiter on initial application updates in ~2 business days.
Akuna Capital’s Options 201 Course:
During our 3-day virtual Options 201 Course, running from April 6 to April 8, 2026, we will build upon what is introduced in our online Akuna’s Options 101 Course. We will deep dive into how market makers price options, analyse risk, automate their workflow and more. Please note that prior completion of the Options 101 Course is not required, but highly recommended.
Over the 3-day virtual course, participants will work through five lectures with our trading team, and complete five corresponding quizzes. By the end of the course, we expect all participants to better understand options market making, and most importantly, have a better idea of whether trading is the right career for them. Top performers will be expedited to final round interviews for our Junior Quant Trader role. As mentioned, this role includes trader training in Akuna’s Chicago headquarters, providing a unique opportunity for successful candidates.
Trader Training Program at Akuna Chicago office:
Your learning is important to us! You will begin our Akuna Training Program with lectures, projects, written assessments, mock trading games and trader shadowing at our Chicago office over the course of three months. We will teach you all about:
- Market Making
- Options Greeks
- Risk Management
- Systematic trading strategies
- Proprietary systems
Guided by our experienced traders, mock market games will teach you how to value futures and options, hedge your risk, and get comfortable with option combinations, all while staking real money as you compete against your peers.
Junior Quant traders will hone their technical skills (coding experience is not a requirement but highly desirable!) working on real problems being faced by our trading teams – performing analysis, developing tooling, or even building models.
We place traders with teams so that they can get experience and develop their skills, then determine where we believe they can have the biggest impact and career growth. Our team values strong mental maths, great communication, and a passion for creative problem solving. If you’re ready to challenge yourself at an exciting firm with opportunity to grow and develop, Akuna is the place for you!
Requirements for this role:
- Able to dedicate 1.5-2 hours each day throughout April 6-April 8, 2026, to attend Options 201 course including virtual lectures, mini-shadows, office hours, and complete quizzes
- Able to meet the timelines per illustrated “Timeline” section above
- Graduate before July 2026 with 0-2 years’ experience
- Bachelor, Masters or PhDs in Engineering, Statistics, Mathematics, Physics, Mechanics, Computer Science, Actuarial Science, Economics, FinTech, Data Science, Business Analytics, Financial Engineering, Big Data or related degrees
- Quick mental maths, pattern recognition, and probability skills
- Strong verbal and written communication skills
- Desire to learn about financial markets and economic theories
- Risk appetite and ability to work well under pressure in a face paced, team environment
Qualities that make great candidates:
- Distinction Average or proven strong academics
- Awards, prizes, medals, competitions, and scholarships
- Achievements outside of studies through your hobbies and interests
- Work experience that enhanced your communication, problem solving, analytical, and teamwork skills
About Akuna:
Akuna Capital is an innovative trading firm with a strong focus on collaboration, cutting-edge technology, data driven solutions, and automation. We specialize in providing liquidity as an options market-maker – meaning we are committed to providing competitive quotes that we are willing to both buy and sell. To do this successfully, we design and implement our own low latency technologies, trading strategies, and mathematical models.
Our Founding Partners first conceptualized Akuna in their hometown of Sydney. They opened the firm’s first office in 2011 in the heart of the derivatives industry and the options capital of the world – Chicago. Today, Akuna is proud to operate from additional offices in Sydney, Singapore, Shanghai, Boston and London.
At Akuna, we believe that the people are the centre of everything we do. Our Sydney office has a start-up feel with less than 100 people, which means you really get to know the team! We run social poker competitions, happy hours, have a fully stacked breakfast and snack room, host social events, social club events, and offer great training with our Akuna University. We are looking for the best talent to join us on this journey. If you enjoy being part of smart, driven teams with real challenges to solve - this could be the place for you!
