Practice · Quant prep · SIG
SIG interview process
Susquehanna teaches trading as decision-making under uncertainty, with poker and game theory as part of the training. The interviews look for the same thing: whether you can put a number on an uncertain situation and act on it.
The process, from SIG’s own pages
- The steps. Application; an online assessment of quantitative and problem-solving skills; phone interviews, behavioural and technical; an office interview with a trader, a trade floor visit and an office tour; then an offer. (Sydney graduate trader advert.) Source
- No finance needed. The advert says you do not need to have studied finance, and that the firm teaches what you need to know. Source
- What it looks for. Numerate and logical, a problem solver, a communicator, and curious about a trading career; most hires come from STEM degrees. Source
- Training. Seminars on options and decision strategies, mock trading, and poker and other strategy games, ending with a ten-week training class in the Philadelphia office. Source
What candidates report
Candidates describe probability and expected-value questions in the phone rounds, and betting or market-making games played against a trader in the office round. Poker hands and decisions with incomplete information come up often.
What SIG states it pays
Base pay as written in SIG’s own job adverts for the 2027 cycle, before any bonus. The same advert adds a signing bonus and housing.
| Role | Where | Stated base pay | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quantitative Systematic Trading Internship (Master's / PhD) | New York, Philadelphia | $8,600 a week; ten weeks | Advert |
PDF · Edition 2 · £79
The Quant Careers Report
SIG’s process step by step and the pay it states in its adverts, side by side with 12 other trading firms, plus when to apply and five timed practice papers with worked solutions.
What SIG is testing
SIG's questions are rarely pure probability. They ask for a number and then a decision: what is this worth, would you take the bet, how much would you stake. The arithmetic is usually short; the judgement is the point, and so is saying what you would do if the odds changed.
Expect follow-ups that change the information you have, as a hand of cards does. Candidates who update calmly when a trader trades against them, and who ask what the other side might know, do better than those who defend their first answer.
Six practice problems
Written by us to match the types SIG is publicly reported to ask. None is a copy of any question SIG has used.
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You are dealt two cards from a standard deck. What is the probability that they make a pair?
Show the answer
1/17 ≈ 0.059
Whatever the first card is, 3 of the remaining 51 cards share its rank, so the probability is 3/51 = 1/17. Roughly one hand in seventeen, which is why a pocket pair is rarer than it feels at the table.
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There is 100 in the pot. Your opponent bets 50. How often do you need to win for calling to break even?
Show the answer
25%
You pay 50 to win a pot that will hold 100 + 50 + 50 = 200. Calling breaks even when your share of the pot equals your cost: 50/200 = 25%. If your hand wins more often than that, the call has positive expected value, however unlikely the win feels.
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A fair die is rolled. What are fair prices for a call and a put on the result, both with strike 3?
Show the answer
Call 1, put 0.5
The call pays 0, 0, 0, 1, 2, 3 for rolls 1 to 6, an average of 1. The put pays 2, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, an average of 0.5. As a check, call minus put should equal the expected value minus the strike, 3.5 − 3 = 0.5, which is put-call parity with no interest.
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Two cards are drawn from a standard deck. Given that at least one is an ace, what is the probability that both are?
Show the answer
1/33
P(both aces) = C(4,2)/C(52,2) = 6/1326. P(at least one ace) = 1 − C(48,2)/C(52,2) = 198/1326. The ratio is 6/198 = 1/33. Knowing that a particular card is an ace would give 3/51 instead, which is the trap the question sets.
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You hold two hearts in Texas hold'em. What is the probability that the five board cards include at least three hearts?
Show the answer
About 6.4%
Fifty cards remain, 11 of them hearts. The probability of 3, 4 or 5 hearts among 5 cards drawn is the sum of C(11,k)·C(39,5−k)/C(50,5) for k = 3 to 5, which is 19,371/302,680 ≈ 0.064. Suited hands make a flush by the river only about one time in sixteen.
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Three cards are dealt from a standard deck. What is the probability of a straight that is not also a straight flush? Ace can be high or low.
Show the answer
36/1105 ≈ 3.3%
There are 12 runs of three ranks (A-2-3 up to Q-K-A), each dealt in 4³ = 64 suit combinations, of which 4 are all one suit. That is 12 × 60 = 720 hands out of C(52,3) = 22,100, or 36/1105. In three-card poker a straight is rarer than a flush, the reverse of the five-card game.
Practise under time
Trading first round: Ten questions across probability, puzzles and expected value, 30 minutes.
How to prepare for SIG
Practise turning every probability into a decision: after each answer, say whether you would bet and how much. Play through a few poker hands counting outs and pot odds aloud. And revise conditional probability carefully, because SIG likes questions where the wording of the condition changes the answer.
Preparing for Susquehanna? The strategy hour tells you where your probability and decision-making stand against what its rounds test. What the hour covers, £250.
Other firm guides: Jane Street, Optiver, Citadel, IMC, Five Rings, Two Sigma, D. E. Shaw, DRW, Hudson River Trading, G-Research, Flow Traders.