Jump Trading

Software Engineer Internship Interview Experience - Chicago, Illinois

February 1, 2012

Neutral ExperienceNo Offer

Process

I was told the company is very selective. They only hire about 4 people a year!

Technical phone interview. I am most familiar with C/C++, so I got programming questions on C/C++.
On-site interview. You are invited to Chicago, their headquarters. Then it took me about one day to finish the interview, including 3 rounds of technical questions.

Questions

Write code for the Nth Fibonacci number.

For a 2-level nested loop iterating a 2D array, will exchanging the loop iteration index make a difference in performance?

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 1 interview experience for the Jump Trading Software Engineer Internship role in Chicago, Illinois.

Success Rate

0%

Pass Rate

Jump Trading's interview process for their Software Engineer Internship roles in Chicago, Illinois is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive0%

Neutral100%

Negative0%

Candidates reported having mixed feelings for Jump Trading's Software Engineer Internship interview process in Chicago, Illinois.

Jump Trading Work Experiences

Fun job. Good perks

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Pros: You learn a lot and work with some of the smartest people.

Cons: Quite grueling at times, and you don't want to make a mistake since it could cost a million dollars.

Fun job. Good perks

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Pros: You learn a lot and work with some of the smartest people.

Cons: Quite grueling at times, and you don't want to make a mistake since it could cost a million dollars.

Fun Problems, Slow Decisions

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Pros: Generous pay, great people, empathetic leadership, aggressive reinvestment from the top into the company, and fun problems to solve.

Cons: Hard decisions can be slow to come from the top. Increasing deviation from the pod structure.

Fun Problems, Slow Decisions

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Pros: Generous pay, great people, empathetic leadership, aggressive reinvestment from the top into the company, and fun problems to solve.

Cons: Hard decisions can be slow to come from the top. Increasing deviation from the pod structure.

An excellent place to work

Production Engineer • Current Employee

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Pros: Loads of very talented people to work with. Some other review said high density talent, which is a great way to describe it. Great compensation, especially considering WLB within the industry. Lots of bleeding-edge technology and interesting problems to solve. They have world-class HPC infrastructure and really cool, bespoke hardware. Great culture. Many people have been here for 10+ years, and everyone seems very happy. Very few egomaniacs, especially for a place with so many talented people.

Cons: Tech debt coupled with complex systems with lots of bespoke hardware and software. It's very difficult to really feel completely comfortable and knowledgeable, even if you are very smart and have spent a good amount of time here. Very flat and distributed organization can lead to feeling like there is a lack of direction at times. Not really specific to Jump, but similar to most HFT firms, the compensation and career path can be very unclear.

An excellent place to work

Production Engineer • Current Employee

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Pros: Loads of very talented people to work with. Some other review said high density talent, which is a great way to describe it. Great compensation, especially considering WLB within the industry. Lots of bleeding-edge technology and interesting problems to solve. They have world-class HPC infrastructure and really cool, bespoke hardware. Great culture. Many people have been here for 10+ years, and everyone seems very happy. Very few egomaniacs, especially for a place with so many talented people.

Cons: Tech debt coupled with complex systems with lots of bespoke hardware and software. It's very difficult to really feel completely comfortable and knowledgeable, even if you are very smart and have spent a good amount of time here. Very flat and distributed organization can lead to feeling like there is a lack of direction at times. Not really specific to Jump, but similar to most HFT firms, the compensation and career path can be very unclear.

Fun job. Good perks

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Pros: You learn a lot and work with some of the smartest people.

Cons: Quite grueling at times, and you don't want to make a mistake since it could cost a million dollars.

5.0
Fun job. Good perks
Software Engineer • Former Employee
Chicago, Illinois, United States
August 5, 2025
Pros: You learn a lot and work with some of the smartest people.
Cons: Quite grueling at times, and you don't want to make a mistake since it could cost a million dollars.

Fun Problems, Slow Decisions

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Pros: Generous pay, great people, empathetic leadership, aggressive reinvestment from the top into the company, and fun problems to solve.

Cons: Hard decisions can be slow to come from the top. Increasing deviation from the pod structure.

5.0
Fun Problems, Slow Decisions
Software Engineer • Current Employee
Chicago, Illinois, United States
August 3, 2025
Pros: Generous pay, great people, empathetic leadership, aggressive reinvestment from the top into the company, and fun problems to solve.
Cons: Hard decisions can be slow to come from the top. Increasing deviation from the pod structure.

An excellent place to work

Production Engineer • Current Employee

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Pros: Loads of very talented people to work with. Some other review said high density talent, which is a great way to describe it. Great compensation, especially considering WLB within the industry. Lots of bleeding-edge technology and interesting problems to solve. They have world-class HPC infrastructure and really cool, bespoke hardware. Great culture. Many people have been here for 10+ years, and everyone seems very happy. Very few egomaniacs, especially for a place with so many talented people.

Cons: Tech debt coupled with complex systems with lots of bespoke hardware and software. It's very difficult to really feel completely comfortable and knowledgeable, even if you are very smart and have spent a good amount of time here. Very flat and distributed organization can lead to feeling like there is a lack of direction at times. Not really specific to Jump, but similar to most HFT firms, the compensation and career path can be very unclear.

5.0
An excellent place to work
Production Engineer • Current Employee
Chicago, Illinois, United States
April 19, 2025
Pros: Loads of very talented people to work with. Some other review said high density talent, which is a great way to describe it. Great compensation, especially considering WLB within the industry. Lots of bleeding-edge technology and interesting problems to solve. They have world-class HPC infrastructure and really cool, bespoke hardware. Great culture. Many people have been here for 10+ years, and everyone seems very happy. Very few egomaniacs, especially for a place with so many talented people.
Cons: Tech debt coupled with complex systems with lots of bespoke hardware and software. It's very difficult to really feel completely comfortable and knowledgeable, even if you are very smart and have spent a good amount of time here. Very flat and distributed organization can lead to feeling like there is a lack of direction at times. Not really specific to Jump, but similar to most HFT firms, the compensation and career path can be very unclear.

Jump Trading Interview Questions

Happy Number

Determine if a number is a 'happy number'. A happy number eventually reaches 1 when replaced by the sum of the squares of its digits, repeating the process until it does.

RecursionHash Table

Permutation Sequence

Given a number n and an integer k, find the kth lexicographical permutation of the sequence 1, 2, ..., n. Essentially, you need to generate the kth permutation without explicitly calculating all the preceding permutations.

ArraysRecursionBacktracking

Subtree of Another Tree

Determine if one binary tree is a subtree of another binary tree. That is, check if the structure and node values of the smaller tree exactly match a portion of the larger tree.

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