Akuna Capital Graduate Programs & Internships

Akuna Capital is an innovative trading firm with a strong focus on collaboration, cutting-edge technology, data driven solutions and automation. We specialise in providing liquidity as an options market maker – meaning we are committed to providing competitive quotes that we are willing to both buy and sell. To do this successfully we design and implement our own low latency technologies, trading strategies and mathematical models. At Akuna we have a flat structure, where the best idea wins.

Akuna Capital is an innovative trading firm with a strong focus on collaboration, cutting-edge technology, data driven solutions and automation. We specialise in providing liquidity as an options market maker – meaning we are committed to providing competitive quotes that we are willing to both buy and sell. To do this successfully we design and implement our own low latency technologies, trading strategies and mathematical models. At Akuna we have a flat structure, where the best idea wins.

Our Founding Partners, including our CEO Andrew Killion, first conceptualised Akuna in their hometown of Sydney. They opened our first office in 2011 in Chicago, the heart of the derivatives & options industry. Akuna then expanded to Sydney in 2018 to be the centre of our Asian trading operations. We are currently trading HK, Korea, cryptocurrencies and US night markets and are excited for expansions into all the major Asian exchanges. We also have offices in Shanghai and Boston.

At Akuna, we believe that the people are the centre of everything we do. 

Our Sydney office has a start-up feel with around 100 people, which means you really get to know the team! We are expanding rapidly and looking for the best talent to join us on this journey. If you enjoy being part of smart, driven teams with real challenges to solve- this could be the place for you!

Perks & Benefits

We have an in house barrista (so free coffee). We run social poker competitions, office happy hours, have a fully stacked breakfast and snack room, host social events, go on company trips, have social clubs, and offer great training with our Akuna University.

We hire into three areas: Trading, Quant & Development.

Applications open: February 2021 

Applications close as we fill each role.

Trading

Our traders are bright, maths-savvy, competitive, and ambitious! We are looking for potential, a desire to compete and people who want to make an immediate impact in our growing firm. We value strong mental maths, great communication, and a passion for problem solving and finding creative solutions. 

Start dates: January 2022 & August 2022

Training: You will begin with our 6-week Akuna Training Program, with lectures, projects, mock trading games and job shadowing. We will teach you all about market making, financial acumen, Options Greeks, risk management, our systems and of course - lots more. You will then rotate between desks within options, delta 1, currency and wholesale trader areas to find your best fit.

Quant

We hire from all STEM degrees and look for strong maths skills & the ability to code.

Our Quantitative Researchers work closely with our developers and traders to analyse and predict all facets of derivative pricing and develop trading strategies using statistical and machine learning algorithms. They create, conduct, and analyse experiments to develop a deep understanding of derivatives and financial markets, test solutions using historical parameters and market data, and perform extensive data analysis to directly improve our trading strategies, design and implement optimisation algorithms for portfolio construction, and advances existing initiatives to explore opportunities for new research topics.

Development:

Our Developers are innovative self-starters that can communicate and work together. They are driven and adaptable, creative problem solvers that make a real impact at Akuna. Our Developers work closely in a team-based approach with our trading and quant teams to design and implement elegant solutions to complex and interesting problems. We believe that teamwork is vital for success in this industry. 

They use cutting-edge technology while working on high performance/low latency systems. Projects include such things as; creating trading infrastructure, algorithms, exchange gateways, performance engineering, hardware, data capture and analysis, or front-end user interfaces. If you are excited to jump in and make a difference, Akuna could be the place for you!

Start dates: January 2022 & August 2022

Training: You will be paired with a mentor to work together on your first project, and we offer extensive training opportunities to learn about market making, our systems, and financial theories.

Our internships vary from 7-10 weeks over the summer break. We hire into the same three areas as our graduate: trading, quant and development.

Applications open: February 2021

Applications close: July 2021 (or when we fill each role)

The steps in your recruitment process

• Apply online- answer a few questions and submit a resume
• Online test- maths and/or coding depending on the role
• Phone interview with someone from the team you applied to
• Final interview or Assessment Centre

Successful candidates for trading have strong maths skills, for development have good coding skills, and for our quant teams you need both maths and coding. Everyone at Akuna is a great team player, communicator and is entrepreneurial- this are the skills we look for in our new hires too!

Akuna Capital specialises in providing liquidity as an options market-maker. We offer this course to individuals that are interested in learning the intricacies of options theory.

The Trading 101 Course allows you to learn the basics of pay-off diagrams which are the tools for visualising the profits and losses from option contracts at expiration. It also dives into historical and implied volatility and breaks down how this measure of price movement is calculated and how it relates to option prices.

And lastly, this course allows you to explore option screen basics by watching videos that explain what options market-maker look at while trading the markets.

Visit Akuna office virtually here! Take a 360-degree tour of the Chicago headquarters while hearing from our employees. The virtual reality experience includes an immersive simulator which showcase a “day in the life” of an Akuna Trader, Quant and Developer.