Electronic trading firm Optiver has had a meteoric rise, doubling its headcount to 2,233 over the past six years. There’s only so much incumbent electronic trading talent to go around so, as it expands in the US, it has taken to hiring from outside sources.
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Optiver hired Qian Zhao this month in New York as a quant researcher in its credit trading team. She spent the last four and a half years as US head of applied AI for machine learning quants at Goldman Sachs. Zhao also spent three years at JPMorgan; her tenure overlapped with Optiver’s head of credit trading, Andreas ‘AK’ Koukorinis, who was an MD in systematic market making for JPMorgan before a brief stint at crypto trading firm GSR.
Optiver, which has a strong presence in Chicago, moved into a new 23,000 square foot Manhattan office last October. It’s home to several marquee hires from the past year, including CTO Lance Braunstein, and Andrew Arnold, who heads the firm’s New York AI Lab.
The firm is also hiring in London. This month it hired Antish Manna as a trading analytics lead after a nine year stint at hedge fund Man Group. There, he was a principal quant and head of execution analytics in its multi-strategy division.
The growth isn’t stopping for Optiver in 2026, which currently has 158 open listings including internships. 12 of those are in New York, each offering a flat salary of $200k.
Optiver did not respond to a request for comment.
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