What Candidates Actually Want to Know Before Starting a Process
Before agreeing to move forward with any process, most candidates want real clarity on a small set of practical questions. Being upfront about these tends to build far more trust than vague reassurance.
What style of technical questions should candidates actually expect?
A practical, problem-solving format rather than academic memorisation. Early rounds typically focus on clean coding, data structure choices, and edge-case handling in a live coding environment, while later on-site rounds tend to cover system architecture, concurrency, and lower-level fundamentals like memory management and cache behaviour. Knowing this in advance changes how a candidate prepares, less time drilling abstract algorithms, more time on real systems thinking.
Why is the job description so general, what's the actual team?
Most top-tier firms deliberately assess overall engineering ability first, rather than hiring against one narrow, rigid job description. Once a candidate clears the core technical bar, they typically move into a team-matching stage, meeting hiring managers across several specialised areas, core infrastructure, execution systems, or quantitative development among them, to find the strongest genuine fit on both sides. The general job description isn't vagueness, it reflects how the actual hiring process works.
Can a candidate speak to the team before technical rounds start?
Not usually in full, but a meaningful amount of context is available earlier than candidates often expect. Early recruiter conversations are specifically built to cover team structure, culture, and career alignment, and a good recruiter can give a genuine, detailed brief on the specific desks and business areas involved before formal team introductions happen post-technical assessment.
Do candidates need a prior finance or quant background?
No, and this remains one of the most persistent, avoidable hesitations. The clear majority of successful hires into these roles come from Big Tech, research labs, or general technology backgrounds, not finance. Firms are explicitly looking for strong computer science and systems fundamentals, trading-specific concepts and terminology are taught on the job.
Why go through a specialist recruiter rather than applying directly or through a personal referral?
Direct, established relationships with hiring managers matter more than most candidates assume. A specialist recruiter typically has regular, direct contact with hiring managers across specific specialised teams, which keeps a strong candidate's profile in front of the right person rather than sitting in a general applicant tracking queue. Genuine value also shows up in practical coaching, real prior interview questions, fast feedback turnaround, and support through offer negotiation, none of which comes with a direct application. Candidates can generally still credit an internal referral for any referral bonus while retaining recruiter representation and support alongside it.
Will a candidate's CV be shared without their permission?
It shouldn't be, and it's a fair question to ask directly of any recruiter. Explicit consent before presenting a CV to any specific firm should be the standard, with outreach kept targeted to agreed opportunities rather than distributed broadly across the market.
How does existing Big Tech seniority or leveling actually translate?
Quant trading firms tend to focus on genuine scope of impact and technical problem-solving ability rather than mapping directly onto a prior employer's internal grading system. Compensation structures are typically much more heavily performance and bonus-weighted than a standard Big Tech package, often representing a substantial step up, though the exact translation depends heavily on individual scope and the specific firm.
Can candidates interview in a language other than the firm's core stack?
Generally, yes. Most core technical rounds allow candidates to work in whichever language they're strongest in, commonly Python, Java, or C++, even where the firm's actual production stack is something else entirely, such as C++ or OCaml. Firms are typically assessing programming fundamentals and design thinking over syntax familiarity, and provide genuine ramp-up support for a firm-specific stack once hired.
