Optiver’s Crazy High Intern Salary, But Not Full-Time
Looking to start a quant/trading job a year from now, have no internship experience, looking for advice
Make a resume, study quant problems (plenty of books already recommended across other threads), apply for a graduate internship, get an offer, kill it, get a return offer, make bank
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I came across Optiver’s Summer 2026 quant trader internship, which pays 65-80k for 10 weeks, basically an annualized 338-416k and is consistent with levels.fyi.
Their full-time base salary (e.g., graduate quantitative researcher, PhD) is only around 175k (of course, performance bonus is not included here). Meanwhile, other prop shops like JS/HRT/Jump pay 300k for both interns and new grads.
Why would Optiver pay such a crazy high intern salary but much lower for new grad roles?
My guess is they’re using the internship to attract top talent and convert them to full time, but if full time compensation is lower than JS/Jump/HRT, wouldn’t many interns just leave for higher-paying firms anyway?