Hello everyone! Shrey this side, a final year undergraduate student in the department of Computer Science and Engineering. I just completed an internship in Quadeye in the Quant profile. Here I will first walk you through the internship process, which would be a bit generic and then I would move on to the work and environment specifically at Quadeye.
So like every other student who interned at an HFT, the primary motivation I had was MONEY. ( Yes, Wolf of wall street was a major influence) Also, being a gujju, I had always wanted to do something related to the stock market and this was the perfect opportunity. The selection process consisted of 3 interviews each for the quant and systems role of the resume-shortlisted students. Selection was done mainly based on CPI and JEE ranks. If you are good on both of these fronts then, well, keep reading(You are most probably selected already, although, one student with CPI and AIR better than many other students didn’t get in. It is still a mystery to all of us). Of my three interviews for the quant profile, I was asked some basic puzzles, probabilities and some quick math in the first. The second one was more HR-kind where we discussed(in detail) why my CPI was “so low”(his words, not mine). The third one again consisted of some puzzles. All of them were very short(10-15 mins). Xinfeng Zhou’s book is a great resource to help you for the puzzle and probabilities part.
Now let’s get to the internship, shall we. All the quant interns were divided into six groups some of which were further divided into two. The project for my group was mostly research based, which I loved. All the projects required only basic financial knowledge so don’t worry about it(One of the partners said, and I quote,”If we needed the financial knowledge, we would have hired from a B-school”). My group had more of a collaborative approach so we were all able to discuss ideas. This was not the case in most of the other groups. The work days were long, almost 9 to 8 everyday, with some occasional taunts for not doing any work on the weekends. This was again different across groups. We also had four tests throughout the internship, two of them being coding tests and the other two being analytical tests. The tests were fairly easy and mostly had questions from standard sites.The internship was a great learning experience with a steep learning curve. The work environment was casual(you can expect to hear some occasional “oh bhenchod” from your mentor but know that it is coming from a place of love) and competitive. My mentor was very kind and helpful and encouraged us to explore our ideas. Even though the work hours were tiring, I definitely enjoyed myself. The city of gurgaon(read daru) and the foosball table were a great help. I still can’t get over the fact that you can get the whole khambha of magic moments only for 400 when all shots literally everywhere in Mumbai are more expensive.
Lastly, I would just like to encourage everyone here to take your internship as a good learning experience. Put in some regular efforts, prepare for the tests and getting the PPO should be child’s play for you. Hit me up for any doubts or queries and all the best!
