Toxic - Graduate Analyst Optiver Employee Review

1.0
Apr 8, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Benefits, and pay. Educated workforce. Good hours relative to what you expect. You can learn and grow quickly.

Cons

Too many firings, hard to get attached to people because sad seeing friends get cut. Dutch culture is not normal for Aus/NZ raised kids (more so NZ than people growing up in Syd/Melb). Too much advertisement on how good the firm and culture is. Always good image. Not HFT or hedge fund, its 'market making', and 'we love our women' while having a very boys club trading floor, and HR protection for the senior staff. For every graduate employee that makes it into high bonuses, another gets casted out into unemployment and mental health issues. Every year the graduate group come in all optimistic, think the cut throat culling of grads is in the past and changed, that everyone will be happy - little do they know everything is a test, being evaluated constantly, and hugely intelligent people get kicked out each year regardless. But don't worry, you can get paid well and have all the benefits of food and high end perks, but you may very well come out with long term health issues. You can even find a youtube ad of Optiver back in the day where an old man on a bench gets an errection. That culture is still entrenced.

Explore other reviews about Optiver

5.0
Feb 24, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

worked on a lot of different areas of the trading stack; often close with researchers learned about technical components for data driven trading saw my impact day to day

Cons

constant office renovations were a bit distracting, but was told it should be done in 2026

3.0
May 21, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good compensation, collaborative environment. Company also seems to aim to be at forefront of new tech such as AI

Cons

When HR mgmt is on record stating things like the company shouldn’t hire females anymore, it really makes you wonder how they make decisions on who should fill management positions

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