Akuna Capital Quantitative Trader mock interview

Akuna runs a course-shaped funnel no other prop shop has: free Options 101 online → selective 1-week Options 201 → fast-track Junior Trader interviews. Loop is mental-math OA + EV phone rounds + Chicago Superday market-making games. Y1 TC ~$200-300K reported.

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Why Quantitative Trader at Akuna is different — the funnel is a course, not a test

Most prop shops gate with a brutal screen. Akuna Capital gates with homework it wrote for you: the free Options 101 online course (open outcry, electronic trading, Greeks — Akuna Capital University on Teachable), feeding into the selective 1-week Options 201 virtual seminar, whose top performers get expedited Junior Trader interviews per Akuna's own Greenhouse posting. No other firm in this tier runs an education-shaped side door — and most candidates never use it.

The loop itself, per Glassdoor 2025 reports, the Quantt guide, techinterview.org, and 1point3acres threads: a ~60-min mental-math + probability + sequences OA (lighter than Optiver's 80-in-8, still timed hard), a trader phone round built on EV-then-decision questions ('Would you take this deal?'), and a Chicago Superday of 4-5 back-to-back rounds with market-making games and deliberate re-questioning to test coachability.

Three signals dominate: (1) mental-math speed via decomposition, not digit-grinding; (2) EV that ends in a decision — number, side, reason; (3) options fluency — put-call parity and Greeks intuition, because the desk you'd join makes markets in options (crypto options included). Comp per Levels.fyi/Glassdoor: Y1 commonly ~$200-300K — below top-of-street, with a structured Akunacademy training path in exchange.

§ 01What the loop looks like

Round-by-round

  1. 01

    Options 101 course + application

    Self-paced · Pre-onsite

    Akuna's free online course (Akuna Capital University on Teachable): open outcry, electronic trading, option Greeks. Officially 'not required, highly recommended' — but every later round assumes the vocabulary. Doing the free homework before the OA is the cheapest edge in this loop.

  2. 02

    Online Assessment

    ~60 min · Pre-onsite

    Mental math + probability + sequences, no calculator. Reported examples: '10800 × 0.2', '19 × 567', factorials, next-number patterns. Lighter than Optiver's 80-in-8 per techinterview.org, but speed still filters — drill decomposition tricks, not digit-grinding.

  3. 03

    Recruiter screen / recorded video interview

    ~10-30 min · Pre-onsite

    Full-time loops: recruiter phone screen. Intern loops: a recorded video interview — 1 behavioral + 3 mental math questions in a single ≤10-min take on a continuous timer, no breaks between questions (per 1point3acres reports). Practice narrating arithmetic out loud on camera.

  4. 04

    Trader phone interview

    30-45 min · Pre-onsite

    EV of dice games, conditional probability, confidence intervals — then the follow-up that grades you: 'Would you take this deal? Why or why not?' A number without a decision is half an answer. Small market-making mock possible.

  5. 05

    Superday (Chicago) — market-making + trading game

    4-5 × 45 min · Onsite

    Back-to-back rounds with traders. Live market-making games ('I roll three dice and pay you the median — make me a market'), quoting two-way prices, updating as the interviewer trades against you. Interviewers re-question answers even when correct — coachability and composure are scored.

  6. 06

    Superday — options theory + behavioral + lunch

    45-60 min + lunch · Onsite

    Put-call parity, Greeks intuition (delta/gamma/vega/theta), implied volatility meaning — no Black-Scholes derivation expected. Behavioral fit + team lunch. Decisions typically within ~1 week; Glassdoor reports ~20 days application-to-offer on average.

§ 02Question bank

Real interview questions reported by candidates

  • Mental math

    OA mental math: 'What is 10800 × 0.2?' Speed arithmetic without a calculator — decimals, percentages, factorial evaluations.

    Glassdoor Akuna Junior Trader interview reports, 2025

  • Mental math

    OA mental math: 'Evaluate 19 × 567 quickly.' Decomposition beats grinding: 567 × 20 − 567 = 10,773.

    Glassdoor Akuna interview reports, 2025

  • Mental math

    Mental-math technique probe: '13 × 17' — expected route is (15−2)(15+2) = 225 − 4 = 221. Also seen: '240 ÷ 16' = 15.

    Quantt Akuna Capital interview guide

  • Sequences

    OA sequences: next-number pattern questions under time pressure, testing how fast you spot the trend rather than whether you eventually can.

    Glassdoor Akuna OA reports, 2025

  • Mental math

    Recorded video interview (intern track): 1 behavioral + 3 mental math questions in one ≤10-minute continuous take — timer never pauses between questions.

    1point3acres Akuna Trader Intern digital-interview thread

  • EV

    Phone screen EV: expected value of a dice-rolling game, then 'Would you take this deal? Why or why not?' — plus conditional probability and confidence-interval follow-ups.

    Glassdoor Akuna Junior Trader phone-screen reports

  • Probability

    Probability: two boxes hold different combinations of bills — which do you pick, and what's a fair price for the choice? Straight EV comparison with a decision attached.

    Glassdoor Akuna interview reports

  • Market-making

    Market-making: 'I roll three dice and pay you the median in dollars. Make me a market.' EV ≈ 3.5 — quote a bid/ask around it, then defend or update as the interviewer trades.

    Quantt Akuna Capital interview guide

  • Options theory

    Options theory: 'You're long an ATM call. The stock moves up $1 — what's your P&L?' (Delta ≈ 0.5 → roughly +$0.50.) Put-call parity and Greeks intuition expected; Black-Scholes derivation is not.

    Quantt quant-trader question compilation; techinterview.org Akuna guide

  • Behavioral

    Coachability probe: the interviewer challenges your answer repeatedly — including when it's right. Re-derive calmly with fresh reasoning; don't fold, don't flip-flop.

    Quantt Akuna Capital interview guide

§ 03Common signals to fix

What gets you rejected at this level

  • Showing up without the Options 101 vocabulary

    Akuna is an options market maker that publishes its own free on-ramp course. Arriving unable to state put-call parity or what delta means reads as low interest, not low aptitude — you skipped free homework the company handed you. Do Options 101 before the OA; the Superday options round assumes it.

  • Digit-grinding the mental math

    Per Quantt + Glassdoor reports: the OA and phone rounds reward decomposition — difference of squares for 13 × 17, '× 20 minus one' for 19 × 567. Candidates who grind long multiplication run out the clock even when accurate. Drill the tricks (Zetamac-style daily practice) until they're the default route.

  • Computing EV but dodging the decision

    Per Glassdoor phone-screen reports, the graded follow-up is 'Would you take this deal?' Candidates who present a clean EV and then hedge on the decision fail the trading test inside the math test. State the number, state the side, state why — including risk appetite if EV alone doesn't settle it.

  • Folding or flip-flopping under re-questioning

    Per the Quantt guide: Akuna interviewers deliberately re-challenge answers, correct ones included, to test coachability and composure. Abandoning a right answer under pressure flags weak conviction; restating the same words louder flags rigidity. The pass is re-deriving with fresh reasoning and updating only on new information.

  • Generic prop-shop pitch

    'I love fast-paced environments and markets' fits every firm on your list. Akuna-specific anchors exist: options market making as the core business (including an active crypto options desk), the Options 101/201 education funnel, Akunacademy's Chicago internship pipeline, Chicago HQ culture. A 'why Akuna' answer with no derivatives content is a soft rejection.

How Applr's AI mock interview tracks Akuna's trader rubric

Applr's Akuna Quantitative Trader mock drills the loop's actual grading axes. Timed mental-math rounds score your route, not just your answer — decomposition tricks get flagged as present or missing, the way Akuna's OA clock effectively does.

EV rounds always append the Akuna follow-up — 'would you take this deal?' — so you build the number-side-reason habit before a trader grades it. Market-making mocks quote-and-requote against you with deliberate re-challenges of correct answers, training the composure Akuna's Superday tests. Options-theory flash rounds cover put-call parity and Greeks intuition at the 101-course bar, in interview wording rather than textbook wording.

§ 04Adjacent loops

Related practice

§ 05Questions

FAQ

Is the Options 101 course required before applying?

Officially no — Akuna's own Greenhouse postings say completion is 'not required, but highly recommended.' Practically, treat it as required: it's free, self-paced (Akuna Capital University on Teachable), covers open outcry, electronic trading, and option Greeks, and the later interview rounds assume that vocabulary. It's also the stated preparation for Options 201. Skipping the free course the company built for applicants is a bad signal you can avoid in a few evenings.

What is Options 201 and does it really lead to interviews?

Per Akuna's Greenhouse posting: a selective 1-week virtual seminar (~2 hours/day — lectures, mini-shadows, office hours, quizzes) on how market makers price options, analyze risk, and automate workflow. You apply to it like a job, with degree-field and graduation-window eligibility, and complete assessments to get in. Top performers receive expedited Junior Trader interviews. It runs repeatedly (Nov 2025 and Sept 2026 sessions posted). This is the side door most candidates never use — Blind threads literally have people asking for invites.

How hard is the mental-math OA compared to Optiver's 80-in-8?

Lighter, per techinterview.org's comparison — Akuna's ~60-min OA mixes mental math, probability, and sequences rather than 80 pure-arithmetic questions in 8 minutes. Reported examples: '10800 × 0.2', '19 × 567', factorials, next-number patterns (Glassdoor 2025). But 'lighter' still filters: drill daily (Zetamac-style), and practice decomposition tricks — difference of squares, rounding-and-correcting — because the clock punishes digit-grinding.

How much options theory do I actually need?

More than at most prop shops, because options market making is the whole business. Expected per the Quantt and techinterview.org guides: calls/puts mechanics, put-call parity, Greeks intuition (delta, gamma, vega, theta), and what implied volatility means economically. NOT expected: deriving Black-Scholes. Options 101 plus the early chapters of Hull covers the bar for the junior trader loop.

What does an Akuna Junior Trader make?

Levels.fyi reports a median junior Trader package around $250K ($150K base + $100K bonus). Glassdoor's Junior Trader median total pay is ~$159K with a 90th percentile near $308K; reported Y1 packages commonly land in the $200-300K range. That's below top-of-street Optiver/Citadel Securities/Jane Street offers, with Chicago cost-of-living partially offsetting — and a structured training path (Akunacademy internship → Junior Trader cohort) on the way in.

How long does the process take?

Glassdoor reports ~20 days average from application to offer for Junior Trader. Per the Quantt guide, Superday decisions typically arrive within about a week. The slow path is the course funnel: Options 201 sessions run on fixed dates with eligibility windows tied to your graduation year, so if you're targeting the fast-track, plan a semester ahead rather than a month ahead.

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