SIG Quantitative Trader mock interview

Probability-only phone screens (zero coding) + a 17-question open-ended OA, then a Super Day of back-to-back EV games, a group trading game and a poker-hand round — the firm behind The Mathematics of Poker interviews the way it trades.

  • 17
    Open-ended OA questions (~60 min)
  • 0
    Coding questions in trader phone screens
  • 4-6
    Back-to-back Super Day interviews
  • Free
    First mock

Why Quantitative Trader at SIG is different — the loop is a poker table, not a whiteboard

SIG (Susquehanna International Group) is one of the world's largest options market makers, and its interview is the most explicitly decision-science-flavored in quant trading. The firm's own careers material frames trading through game theory and poker; Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman — co-authors of The Mathematics of Poker — are SIG quants, the firm counts multiple WSOP bracelet winners and runs an annual internal poker tournament. The loop is built to match: per Glassdoor reviewers, both phone rounds are probability-based with no coding; per techinterview.org and Quantt, the Super Day stacks 4-6 back-to-back trader interviews, a group trading game where you quote bids and offers on unknown quantities, and a poker-hand or decision-theory round — sometimes as a separate evening poker event.

Three signals dominate: (1) EV over likelihood — SIG picks games where the most likely outcome and the highest-EV decision diverge, and grades which one you reason from; (2) Bayesian recalibration — interviewers inject new information mid-problem and watch whether you update or defend; (3) discipline under variance — after a simulated loss in the trading game, do you tilt or re-price rationally.

The funnel is front-loaded: the SIG Problem Solving Assessment (~60 min, 17 open-ended questions — gambler's ruin, random walks, path combinatorics per an August 2025 Glassdoor report) filters on speed, with pass rates reported around 20-30% (Quantt). Survivors who reach an offer enter a multi-month trader development program at Bala Cynwyd or Dublin — options theory, simulation, and structured poker training — before touching real risk.

What the loop looks like

Round-by-round

  1. 01

    SIG Problem Solving Assessment (OA)

    Pre-onsite
    ~60 min

    17 open-ended quantitative questions for full-time roles; interns get a ~20-min Quantitative Evaluation instead. An August 2025 Glassdoor report lists gambler's ruin, random walks and path combinatorics. Speed is the deciding factor — pass rate widely reported around 20-30%.

  2. 02

    Recruiter phone screen

    Pre-onsite
    ~30 min

    Background, why trading, why SIG, how you follow markets. Occasional light brainteaser. Glassdoor consensus: both phone rounds are probability-based with no coding — don't burn prep time on LeetCode.

  3. 03

    Trader phone/video — probability round

    Pre-onsite
    30-60 min

    3-5 problems with a junior or senior trader: conditional-probability ladders, Bayes updates, EV games, a short market-intuition discussion. Interviewers reveal new information mid-problem and watch whether you recalibrate or dig in.

  4. 04

    Super Day — probability + EV interviews

    Onsite
    4-6 × 30-45 min

    Back-to-back trader interviews at Bala Cynwyd (Philadelphia HQ), Dublin, London, Hong Kong or Sydney. Harder brainteasers where EV diverges from the most likely outcome, mental math under time pressure, occasional short market simulations rather than algorithm questions.

  5. 05

    Super Day — group trading game + poker round

    Onsite
    60-90 min

    Candidates quote bids/offers on unknown quantities and update as information emerges. Then a poker-hand discussion or structured decision-theory problem — pot odds, ranges, bet sizing. Sometimes run as a separate evening poker event.

  6. 06

    Super Day — behavioral + lunch with traders

    Onsite
    45-60 min

    Motivation, decision-making under uncertainty, 'why SIG over Jane Street, Optiver or IMC', competitive-games background. Senior trader review follows; decisions typically within a week. Full pipeline runs 4-8 weeks (Glassdoor average ~32 days to hire).

Question bank

Real interview questions reported by candidates

  • OA probability

    "OA set (17 open-ended questions): gambler's ruin, path combinatorics, random walks. Open answer boxes, not multiple choice — you must produce the number, fast."

    Source · Reported on Glassdoor, August 2025
  • Probability

    "Flip a fair coin until you get two heads in a row. What's the expected number of flips? (Answer: 6 — set up states and condition on the first flips.)"

    Source · techinterview.org SIG interview guide
  • Poker EV

    "In a poker hand you have a 30% chance of winning. The pot is $100 and your opponent bets $50. Should you call? (Pot odds: $50 to win $200 = 25% breakeven, so call.)"

    Source · techinterview.org SIG interview guide
  • Market-making

    "Make me a market on the number of dominoes in a standard set. Quote a bid and an ask, then defend or update when the interviewer trades against you. (Double-six set = 28.)"

    Source · techinterview.org SIG interview guide
  • Bayes

    "Two coins: one fair, one lands heads 75% of the time. Pick one at random, flip three heads in a row. Probability you hold the fair coin? (Bayes: ~22.9%.)"

    Source · Quantt SIG interview guide
  • EV

    "Roll a fair die. You may accept the roll or reroll once. Playing optimally, what's your EV? (Keep 4-6, reroll 1-3: EV = 4.25.)"

    Source · Quantt SIG interview guide
  • EV + risk

    "I'll pay you the sum of three rolls of a fair die. How much would you pay to play — and at what price would you flip and become the seller? (EV 10.5; the follow-up probes variance and risk aversion.)"

    Source · Quantt SIG interview guide
  • Speed round

    "Speed round: shown pairs of poker starting hands, call out which is more likely to win — fast, before the video interview even starts."

    Source · Reported on Glassdoor trader interview reviews
  • Probability

    "One pack of 52 cards, one double pack of 104. Draw two cards from the same pack; you win if both are red. Which pack do you choose? (The 104: 51/206 > 25/102 — removing a red card hurts less in a bigger pack.)"

    Source · WSO 'Massive List of Trading/Quant Questions' thread
  • Behavioral

    "Why SIG over Jane Street, Optiver or IMC? And what would be your edge compared to other traders?"

    Source · Quantt SIG guide; Tradermath SIG guide
Common signals to fix

What gets you rejected at this level

  • Answering with probability when the question is about EV

    SIG deliberately picks games where the most likely outcome and the highest-EV choice diverge, per the techinterview.org SIG guide. Candidates who reason 'this will probably happen, so do X' instead of computing the expectation fail the core filter. Every answer should start from 'what's the EV of this decision' — then layer variance and risk aversion on top when the follow-up asks.

  • Refusing to update when new information lands

    Interviewers reveal partial information mid-problem on purpose and watch the recalibration, per techinterview.org and Quantt. Digging into your original answer to look consistent reads as anti-Bayesian — the exact opposite of how SIG trades options. Say what changed, redo the estimate out loud, move on. Quantt calls the trait 'curiosity under questioning': treat pushback as data, not attack.

  • Tilting after a simulated loss

    In the group trading game and market-making rounds, interviewers observe whether candidates tilt, widen spreads defensively, or recalibrate rationally after losing money on a quote (techinterview.org: 'discipline under variance'). One bad trade is expected; letting it contaminate the next three quotes is the rejection signal. Narrate your risk logic — silence under pressure reads as freeze.

  • No bet-sizing logic in the poker round

    If poker is on your resume, expect specific hand discussion with pot odds and range thinking; if it isn't, you get an equivalent structured decision problem. Either way, calling or folding 'on feel' without pot-odds arithmetic fails. You don't need to be a shark — SIG teaches poker in its trader development program — but you must show the EV framework the firm literally wrote the book on (Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman, The Mathematics of Poker, are SIG quants).

  • Generic 'I want to be a quant' motivation

    'Why SIG over Jane Street, Optiver or IMC' is a reported question, not a hypothetical. SIG's distinct answer: options market making, poker and decision science as an explicit teaching tool, a multi-month trader development program at Bala Cynwyd or Dublin, an annual internal poker tournament, even a sports-trading desk. If your answer could be pasted into a Jane Street interview unchanged, it scores zero.

  • Slow arithmetic on the OA

    Per Quantt, OA pass rates are widely understood to be 20-30% and 'speed is the deciding factor for most candidates.' The questions are open-ended — no multiple-choice elimination tricks. Drill mental math and standard probability setups (gambler's ruin, random walks, counting paths) until the mechanics are automatic and your time goes into the reasoning.

How Applr's AI mock interview tracks SIG's Quantitative Trader rubric

Applr's SIG mock front-loads what SIG front-loads: timed open-ended probability drills in OA format — gambler's ruin, random walks, path counting — where you type the number under the clock instead of eliminating multiple-choice options.

Live rounds then simulate the trader phone screen and Super Day: EV games with mid-problem information reveals that score whether you recalibrate out loud, market-making prompts where the interviewer trades against your quote, and poker pot-odds scenarios that grade the bet-sizing arithmetic rather than the card talk. Behavioral rounds pressure-test the reported "why SIG over Jane Street, Optiver or IMC" question until your answer stops being portable to other firms.

Adjacent loops

Related practice

FAQ

Do I need to be good at poker to pass SIG's interview?

No — but you need the framework. Per the techinterview.org SIG guide, candidates with poker on their resume get specific hand discussions (pot odds, ranges, bet sizing); candidates without get equivalent structured decision-theory problems. SIG teaches poker inside its trader development program and hosts an annual internal tournament — WSOP bracelet winner Bill Chen, co-author of The Mathematics of Poker, heads stat-arb research there. What's graded is EV reasoning under incomplete information, not card-room experience.

What is the SIG online assessment actually like?

Two formats reported: full-time trader candidates get the SIG Problem Solving Assessment — roughly 60 minutes, 17 open-ended questions (an August 2025 Glassdoor report lists gambler's ruin, path combinatorics and random walks); interns get a shorter ~20-minute Quantitative Evaluation of logic and brainteaser questions (Tradermath). Answers are typed numbers, not multiple choice. Quantt reports pass rates widely understood at 20-30%, with speed the deciding factor.

Is there any coding in the SIG quantitative trader loop?

Essentially none. Glassdoor reviewers consistently describe the phone rounds as 'probability-based with no coding', and techinterview.org notes Super Day coding appears only occasionally as short market simulations, not algorithm challenges. Prep time is better spent on conditional probability, EV games and mental math than on LeetCode — the opposite allocation from a SWE loop at the same firm.

What does SIG pay a first-year quantitative trader?

Per the Quantt SIG guide: US first-year packages around $200-300K including signing bonus and guarantee, UK/Ireland roughly £130-180K. The techinterview.org guide quotes new-grad packages up to ~$350K with bonus. Upside compounds after the trader development program — bonuses tie to desk and firm performance. Treat all figures as candidate-reported ranges, not offers.

Where would I actually work — and what is the trader development program?

HQ is Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania (suburban Philadelphia), with major offices in Dublin, New York, Chicago, London, Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney. New trader hires go through a multi-month program at HQ or Dublin covering options theory, market-making mechanics, risk, trading simulation and structured poker training before desk placement with a gradual risk ramp-up. Per techinterview.org, the program is rigorous and not every hire passes it.

Do I need a finance background?

No. SIG hires from math, physics, CS, statistics, economics and engineering, and trains options theory from scratch in the development program. Competitive-games backgrounds — poker, chess, Magic: The Gathering, bridge, math olympiad — are explicitly valued because they map to decision-making under uncertainty. What's screened is probability fluency and calibration, not market vocabulary; one Quantt-reported market-knowledge question (put-call parity) is the exception, not the rule.

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