SIG Interview Guide
SIG screens you with a 20-minute quantitative test, then spends a day at Bala Cynwyd watching how you price games, including a live poker hand.
Quantitative Evaluation
Accuracy is weighted over raw speed
What to expect
- 16 questions in 20 minutes, mixing logic problems with brain-teaser puzzles.
- Linear systems of equations, expected value in game scenarios, and optimal-path grid puzzles.
- Algebra and geometry appear here alongside probability and statistics.
- Answer with integers or fractions. Decimals may be marked wrong.
- Getting fewer questions right beats rushing all sixteen, since accuracy carries the weight.
How to prepare
- Work timed sets and write every answer as an integer or an exact fraction until decimals stop occurring to you.
- Drill expected value in dice, card and coin games, plus lattice and grid-path counting.
- Practise abandoning a question you cannot finish rather than burning the clock on it.
Phone rounds
Technical questions arrive without warning
What to expect
- Calls with a recruiter and with members of the trading team.
- Expect at least one probability or expected-value question, asked conversationally.
- It arrives without warning, in the middle of an otherwise ordinary conversation.
How to prepare
- Treat every call as technical. Have paper in front of you before you pick up.
- Rehearse talking through an expected-value calculation from a standing start.
Onsite at Bala Cynwyd
Starts the evening before, over dinner
What to expect
- A pre-dinner with a young trader or quant researcher the evening before.
- Tours of the building, the data centre and the trading floor.
- Several one-hour quant rounds, including AKQ: a three-card poker model where you solve bluffing and calling frequencies.
- A data-discussion round of about 75 minutes on expected value and expectation-variance trade-offs.
- A live Acey-Deucey hand: two cards are dealt face up, and you bet on whether the third falls strictly between them.
- The wider the gap between those two cards, the better your odds, so the real question is how much to bet at each spread.
- Market making: quote a bid and an ask on an uncertain value, then update as information arrives.
- A trader trades against your quote and asks you to justify every choice you make.
How to prepare
- Learn the AKQ game cold: derive the bluffing and calling frequencies, do not memorise a result.
- Play Acey-Deucey for stakes you feel, so sizing to the spread is a reflex.
- Quote two-sided markets out loud and defend the width, because you will be asked to.
FAQ
What is on the SIG Quantitative Evaluation?
Sixteen questions in twenty minutes, mixing logic problems with brain-teaser puzzles. Expect linear systems of equations, expected value in game scenarios, and harder puzzles such as finding the optimal path across a grid, with algebra and geometry alongside the probability and statistics.
Why do decimals get marked wrong on the SIG assessment?
The assessment expects answers as integers or fractions, so a decimal can be marked wrong even when the underlying work is right. Practise writing every answer as an exact fraction, because 1/4 is safe where 0.25 is not.
Do you need to play poker to get hired at SIG?
No. Susquehanna was founded in May 1987 by Jeff Yass and five co-founders who met playing poker at SUNY Binghamton, and new hires are taught poker after joining, on the view that it trains the probability-based decisions markets demand. Poker mechanics do appear in the interview. AKQ is a three-card poker model used to derive optimal bluffing and calling frequencies, and Acey-Deucey deals you two cards face up and asks whether the third will fall strictly between them, with your bet sized to the gap. Neither assumes prior poker experience.
What happens at the SIG onsite?
The Bala Cynwyd onsite starts the evening before with a dinner with a young trader or quant researcher. The day itself covers tours of the building, data centre and trading floor, several one-hour quant rounds including the AKQ betting game, a data-discussion round of about 75 minutes on expected value and expectation-variance trade-offs, and a live Acey-Deucey hand, where you bet on whether a third card lands between the two already showing.