This page helps candidates preparing for Optiver interviews in quantitative research, trading and engineering. Read the question excerpts to see the style of each pack, then choose the one that matches your role — probability and mental maths for traders, market-making and order-book questions for researchers, behavioural questions for everyone.
8 packs · 409 question entries · all with model answers in the With answers edition · Global. Question excerpts from every pack are free to read below. Full packs from £13 for the questions or £15 with model answers.
Sources: Optiver careers page. Checked 24 October 2026. Formats change by programme, market and year, so your invitation is the final word.
8 packs · 409 question entries
Question excerpts · options, diagrams or other context may be omitted.
Question excerpts · options, diagrams or other context may be omitted.
Question excerpts · options, diagrams or other context may be omitted.
Question excerpts · options, diagrams or other context may be omitted.
Question excerpts · options, diagrams or other context may be omitted.
Question excerpts · options, diagrams or other context may be omitted.
Question excerpts · options, diagrams or other context may be omitted.
Question excerpts · options, diagrams or other context may be omitted.
From Quant Research Q&A – Probability, Trading & Behavioural · With answers edition £26. Each answered question in that edition has a model answer like this one.
In a final-year project on cryptocurrency market efficiency, my teammate and I disagreed about which statistical test to use. She wanted standard variance ratio tests, because they are well established and would make our results comparable with the existing literature. I thought crypto markets had so many structural breaks, such as regulatory shocks, exchange failures and sudden shifts in volatility, that a test assuming one stable regime across the whole sample could be misleading. Rather than keep arguing in principle, I ran both approaches on a subset of the data and found papers that had used regime-switching models on similar questions. When we met, I started by agreeing with her main point: extra complexity only belongs in a paper if it changes the conclusion. Then I showed her a period where the standard test suggested efficiency while the data clearly had a break. We settled on a compromise: variance ratio tests as the main analysis for comparability, and regime-switching results as a robustness check. We each reviewed the other's code, which caught a couple of errors, and our supervisor singled out the methodology section as a strength. What I took away is to settle technical disagreements with evidence, and that the best answer often combines both views.
Model answers are practice examples written for this catalogue, not the employer’s answers or scoring guidance. Compare the structure and level of detail, then answer with your own experience.
Our Optiver packs include questions such as 'True or false: Futures contracts create obligations for both the buyer and the seller', 'What is the probability the first of 30 people is the shortest among five selected at random', and 'How would you design a stock order book'. Recurring themes are probability, expected value, mental maths, market making and behavioural questions.
Think out loud: state your approach before any arithmetic, then step through it and check the answer for reasonableness. For market-making questions, give your two-sided quote and the assumptions behind it. For behavioural questions, use situation, action, result and keep the answer under two minutes.
Match your role. If you are applying to trade, start with 'Quant Trader – Probability, Mental Maths & Market Making'; for research, 'Quant Research Q&A – Probability, Trading & Behavioural' is the broadest; for engineering, 'FutureFocus Technology Interview'. Add a behavioural pack for the behavioural stage.
Our question banks are compiled from questions reported by candidates who took the actual recruitment assessments and interviews.
Packs are preparation material, not a prediction of your assessment questions. Model answers are practice examples, not the employer’s answers or scoring guidance. Check the question excerpts, role, market and stage before choosing a pack.
Every pack opens in your browser after purchase. The Questions edition has every question in the pack; the With answers edition adds a model answer to each answered question. Prices are in GBP. The full list of Optiver packs is in the catalogue.
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