Quantitative Trader

The role

You join the trading team at De Facto Traders to lead a book of your own. You start by working alongside our traders, getting to know our models, our systems and the market. After that, you lead the book, and you decide how its strategies are tuned for today’s market.

The role combines hands-on trading with quantitative thinking. You follow your book and the market every day, and you use our systems to understand what drives the results and how to improve them.

What you will do

• Lead the book. Run it in the market every day, and know at any moment how it is positioned and why.
• Tune the strategies. Test the assumptions behind our models against the current market, and adjust the parameters where the situation calls for it.
• Execute. Work the orders that need a trader’s judgement, and know when to act and when to wait.
• Follow your market. Stay close to your securities, the news and the brokers, so you can act early and propose changes to the book.
• Learn from every trade. Use post-trade analysis to see where your adjustments helped and where they did not, and work with our quantitative researchers to improve the models with what you learn.

Your qualifications

We want to hear from both experienced traders and recent graduates. How soon you lead your own book depends on your experience.

• Relevant education — a master’s degree in a quantitative field such as finance, economics, mathematics, statistics, engineering or computer science. For experienced traders, a strong track record counts as much as the degree.
• Trading experience — as an experienced trader, you have a solid track record in equity trading, ideally with systematic or model-driven strategies. As a recent graduate, you bring a competitive mindset and a strong interest in trading.
• Understanding of execution — market microstructure, auctions, liquidity, order types, and the choice between crossing the spread and working an order patiently. Experienced traders know this from practice. Graduates should know the basics and be eager to learn the rest.
• Analytical mindset — you like to understand your results through data, you are comfortable with numbers and statistics, and you can tell a bad decision from a bad outcome.
• Communication — you can explain a decision clearly enough that a colleague can act on it, and you write it down so others can build on it.

If you do not tick every box but recognise yourself in the role, we would still like to hear from you.

Your working style

• Ambition — you want your book to do better than the models would on their own, and you want the models to learn from what you do.
• Curiosity — you question the numbers you trade on, and look for what the models and the market have missed.
• Grit — you keep making decisions after one goes against you, and you change your approach on evidence rather than on recent results.
• Ownership — when something changes in your book, you act without waiting to be asked.

About De Facto Traders

De Facto Traders is an independent proprietary trading firm, founded in Denmark in 2017 and based in central Aarhus. We trade a wide range of equities across the European markets, and we manage no funds for any external party.

We are small and ambitious. Decision paths are short, and you will see the effect of your work the same trading day.

What we offer

• Your own book, with a clear mandate and real scope for judgement.
• Direct influence on our models and our platform, through close work with our traders, developers and quantitative researchers.
• Room to grow your role as the firm grows.
• A modern office in central Aarhus.

How to apply

Send your CV to Simon Søllingvraa at sso@defactotraders.com, with a short cover letter explaining why the role appeals to you. You are also welcome to call Simon on +45 42 43 37 91 if you would like to hear more about the role before applying.

We read applications as they arrive, so it is worth applying early.

We look forward to hearing from you.