What's your job about?
I’m an options trader at Citadel Securities, where we take on the role of being ‘Options Market Makers’. This means that we have a contractual obligation to exchanges to continually provide prices at which we will buy and sell securities (options in my case). Unlike a lot of market participants who chose the exact trades they want to do, we specifically don’t get to do that – we always take the opposite side of what others want to do.
My job is primarily about what happens during market hours. When the exchange I trade is open, I’m pretty glued to my trading monitor; adjusting our pricing in order to best manage our position, the trades we are doing, and what our smart pricing inputs are telling us. Out of market hours, my focus is to improve our systems and pricing so that we are as successful as possible during market hours. This ends up meaning I do a lot of talking about pricing and execution improvements with colleagues and teammates and coding up indicators and visualizations in Python.
What's your background?
I grew up in Dubai until I was about 16, at which point I came back to Australia (the Sunshine Coast to be exact) to do my final years of high school and go to University. I was always extremely keen on math and physics throughout school, so I followed these routes into Maths and Engineering at University. I spent quite a few years tutoring throughout university and spent a couple of summers doing professional engineering internships around Australia and in Dubai – but I never really enjoyed the Engineering grad role-type job, as it wasn’t technically challenging enough.
Throughout my degree/upbringing, I never really thought of trading as a job, but happened to stumble across it in my final year of University. I have now worked in this industry a cumulative of 3.5 years and it seems bizarre to me now that I never knew this career opportunity existed, but the decisions I made through my education oddly meant that I was perfectly suited for it.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes, the job of a trader is surprisingly broad strokes. I know traders of all different sorts of backgrounds, who mould their own jobs into what they want to get out of it – and what they are good at. My colleagues range from mathematicians and engineers to commerce and accounting professionals to computer scientists to lawyers (all of whom are working as traders now). While maths and statistics knowledge is definitely up there as very handy skills, there’s no set degree for a ‘trader’, so it’s much more based on being logical and working hard.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
I thrive on the constant competition and fast pace of trading, so for me, the best part is the rapid development of pricing and systems. I’m given a large amount of responsibility within my team and choose to pursue a technical and coding-heavy role, so I spend a lot of time designing and implementing ideas which we then push through to production, allowing us to directly experience their benefit (or loss, if things go badly!).
What are the limitations of your job?
If you crave excitement, then trading is a great job for you. A trader’s day is dictated by news events happening in the world, and what other market participants trade against us each day – we never really know what is going to unfold. Trading can be a stressful job, but if you want a technical and competitive job where you get a lot of responsibility, dealing with uncertainty is part of the equation.
3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...
Go out and chat with people in the profession you are interested in. Professionals are generally very keen to talk to people who show an interest in what they do. Message people in the job you want and make it happen.
Apply and interview as much as you can. From the recruiting side, it is obvious who is well-versed in interviews. Don’t only apply for your dream job, use interviewing as a chance to learn. Stack the odds in your favour.
Your job isn’t everything. Find a career where you can still balance your life outside of work, and you have the weekends free to enjoy other things that are important to you.