Pros: Interesting work, good food, and perks.

Cons: Work can be stressful at times.

Pros: Technical problems are challenging and interesting. Colleagues are very smart people, and the atmosphere is culturally rich. Salary and benefits are above the norm.

Cons: Technical management is quite young, and with a notable exception, they all started their career at Optiver. As a consequence, they believe there is no other way to solve technical problems than "the single Optiver way" and cannot even consider that there are different problems which require different solutions. There's a bit of a herd approach in designing systems and applications, and straying from the path is frowned upon even when the advantages of doing so are clear or might be worth a shot. These issues are lately being exacerbated by narrowed diversity in technical recruitment, populating the engineering ranks with clones of the team leads.

Pros: Optiver is ambitious and continues growing. There is a competitive spirit, a desire to be the best, and long-term aspirations. Optiver realizes that people and talent are key to success. For motivated, disciplined, ownership-seeking individuals, there is tremendous upside and growth potential. There are lots of examples of junior and campus hires eventually progressing to senior leadership positions. Leadership takes transparency seriously. Not everything can and will be shared with everyone. However, compared to most places, a huge premium is put on transparency. Optiver is a collaborative company. There is minimal intra-office competition. There is a good quorum of technical and trading leaders that have been with the firm for a number of years.

Cons: Optiver isn't without flaws, just like any other company. When you have a group of ambitious high-achievers, it's bound to create occasional tension. There's always a crunch for resources. This can lead to difficulties focusing on the right things and tough decisions. There are a number of areas, both internal and external, where Optiver should be more aggressive.