How to Get a Job at SIG / Susquehanna International Group

Susquehanna International Group (SIG) is one of the world's largest proprietary trading firms, specializing in options market making and quantitative trading. Founded in 1987 and headquartered in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania (a suburb of Philadelphia), SIG trades on virtually every major exchange worldwide, providing liquidity across equities, options, ETFs, fixed income, energy, and commodities. The firm is one of the most active options market makers globally, handling a significant share of U.S. options volume.

SIG's approach to trading is deeply rooted in decision science and game theory. The firm's founders believed that the principles underlying successful poker play — expected value thinking, probabilistic reasoning, managing uncertainty, and reading your opponents — directly apply to financial markets. This philosophical foundation continues to shape how SIG trains its traders and approaches markets today. The firm combines this decision-science framework with sophisticated quantitative models, advanced technology, and massive data processing capabilities.

With over 2,000 employees across offices in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Dublin, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Tokyo, SIG is a truly global operation. The firm trades its own capital across a diverse range of strategies and asset classes. SIG has also been an early and significant investor in technology and venture capital — the firm is the largest outside investor in TikTok's parent company ByteDance and has made numerous other high-profile investments through its private equity arm. For trading candidates, SIG offers a unique combination of rigorous quantitative training, a distinctive culture built on game theory, and massive scale.

SIG's culture is unlike any other trading firm, centered around game theory, poker, and decision-making under uncertainty. The firm believes that poker is the best training ground for traders — it teaches expected value thinking, risk management, reading opponents, and staying rational when outcomes are uncertain. New hires go through an intensive multi-week training program that includes daily poker sessions, game theory workshops, options theory classes, and simulated trading exercises.

This game-oriented culture extends beyond training. SIG employees regularly play poker, board games, and other strategic games as part of the firm's social fabric. The firm has sponsored professional poker players and even hosted internal poker tournaments. This isn't just for fun — SIG genuinely believes that people who think well about strategic games think well about markets. The ability to make good decisions with incomplete information is the fundamental skill the firm is built on.

Beyond the gaming culture, SIG is known for its extensive training program — widely considered the best in the industry. The program lasts several weeks and covers everything from basic options theory to advanced trading strategies, all taught by experienced traders. New hires practice in simulated markets before trading real capital, and the mentorship is hands-on and comprehensive. SIG's culture is competitive but supportive — traders compete against the market, not each other, and there is a strong emphasis on continuous learning. The firm's Bala Cynwyd headquarters has a campus-like feel with recreational facilities, and the work environment is more relaxed than the high-pressure stereotype of trading floors.

SIG looks for candidates who are sharp quantitative thinkers with strong decision-making instincts. The ideal candidate can reason about probability and expected value quickly, stay rational under pressure, and make good decisions when the outcome is uncertain. The firm values these traits over specific technical credentials — SIG hires from a wide range of academic backgrounds, though most successful candidates have strong STEM foundations.

One of the most distinctive aspects of SIG's hiring is the emphasis on game theory and strategic thinking. The firm actively looks for people who play poker, chess, or other strategy games at a high level. A strong poker player with a math degree will often be preferred over a pure academic who has never thought about strategy and decision-making in competitive settings. The firm tests these skills directly in interviews through game theory puzzles, poker-related scenarios, and strategic reasoning questions.

SIG also values intellectual curiosity, teachability, and a competitive spirit. The firm's training program is comprehensive, so they're willing to hire candidates who don't know much about options or trading — as long as you demonstrate the raw thinking ability and personality traits that predict success. Strong communication skills matter because traders at SIG constantly discuss positions, share information, and debate strategy. The firm wants people who are both individually brilliant and great team players — candidates who can think independently but also collaborate effectively under pressure.

SIG's interview process typically spans 4 to 5 rounds over 4 to 8 weeks. The process is distinctive for its emphasis on game theory, expected value reasoning, and behavioral assessment alongside traditional quantitative testing. SIG interviews are designed to evaluate how you think, not just what you know — the firm is looking for decision-making quality under uncertainty.

• Online assessment (1 round): A timed quantitative test covering mental math, probability, and expected value calculations. This serves as the first filter and tests baseline quantitative speed and accuracy.
• Phone screen (1-2 rounds): 45-60 minute interviews focused on probability, game theory, and strategic reasoning. You may be asked to work through a poker hand analysis, solve expected value problems, or reason about a competitive scenario. Interviewers assess both your answers and your thought process.
• On-site interviews (2-3 rounds): A full day at SIG's offices covering multiple interview sessions. Expect probability and expected value problems, game theory scenarios, a market-making simulation, behavioral assessment, and often a poker or card game component. The on-site is the most comprehensive evaluation.

SIG's interviewers are trained to evaluate decision quality, not just outcomes. They want to see that you reason about expected value correctly, size your bets appropriately, and update your beliefs rationally. Making a good decision that leads to a bad outcome is perfectly acceptable — making a bad decision that happens to work out is not. Practice with our SIG interview questions to understand the firm's distinctive style.

Here's a breakdown of what SIG tests in each interview stage:

Expected Value and Probability: SIG's questions are heavily focused on expected value reasoning — the foundation of every trading decision. You might be asked: "I offer you a bet where you win $20 with probability 0.6 and lose $15 with probability 0.4. Do you take it? How much would you pay for the right to take this bet?" The questions get progressively more complex, involving multi-stage games, conditional probabilities, and Kelly criterion sizing. SIG wants to see that you can compute expected values quickly, reason about risk-reward tradeoffs, and make optimal decisions under uncertainty.

Game Theory and Strategic Thinking: SIG is unique in how heavily it tests game theory. Expect problems involving Nash equilibria, bluffing strategies, information asymmetry, and auction theory. You might analyze a simplified poker hand, determine the optimal bidding strategy in an auction, or reason about how a market reacts when different participants have different information. These questions test whether you can think several moves ahead and anticipate how other rational agents will behave.

Poker and Card Game Analysis: SIG may ask you to play poker during the interview or analyze specific poker hands. This isn't about being a great poker player — it's about demonstrating expected value thinking, pot odds calculation, and the ability to read situations strategically. If you play poker, be prepared to discuss your decision-making process. If you don't, learn the basics of Texas Hold'em and practice computing pot odds and expected values for common situations.

Market-Making Simulations: Like other trading firms, SIG uses trading simulations to test your ability to quote prices, manage risk, and respond to information. The emphasis at SIG is particularly on expected value and bet sizing — are you pricing the security correctly given the information available? Are you sizing your positions appropriately given the uncertainty?

Behavioral Assessment: SIG places significant weight on cultural fit and personality. The firm wants people who are competitive but not reckless, confident but not arrogant, and intellectually curious. Be prepared to discuss how you handle losing, what games you play and why, and how you make decisions in your daily life. SIG values self-awareness and the ability to reflect honestly on your decision-making process.

SIG's interview process is built around expected value reasoning, so this should be the foundation of your preparation. The firm wants to see that you can apply EV thinking to complex, multi-layered decisions — not just simple probability calculations.

Start with the basics: given a bet with known probabilities and payoffs, can you quickly compute the expected value and decide whether to take it? Then progress to more complex scenarios: multi-stage games where outcomes depend on your actions, decisions with partial information, and situations where you must consider the Kelly criterion to size your bets optimally. Work through the expected value chapters of "Heard on the Street" and the "Green Book".

Practice applying EV thinking to everyday decisions — this is exactly how SIG wants its traders to think. For example: if you're deciding between two routes to work, how would you reason about the expected time for each given uncertainty about traffic? This kind of applied probabilistic reasoning is the hallmark of SIG's culture.

Work through practice problems from our SIG interview question bank, which contains 120 real questions reported by past candidates. Focus on problems that test expected value, risk management, and strategic decision-making.

SIG's game theory emphasis makes it unique among trading firms, and preparing for this aspect of the interview gives you a significant edge. You don't need to be a poker expert, but you should understand the strategic principles that poker teaches.

Start with the basics of Texas Hold'em poker: hand rankings, pot odds, implied odds, and position play. Learn to compute expected values for common poker situations — should you call, raise, or fold given the pot size and your estimated probability of winning? Resources like "The Theory of Poker" by David Sklansky and "Thinking in Bets" by Annie Duke provide excellent frameworks for decision-making under uncertainty.

For game theory more broadly, study Nash equilibrium, dominant strategies, mixed strategies, and signaling games. "Game Theory: An Introduction" by Tadelis is accessible and covers the key concepts. Practice solving game theory problems: find the equilibrium of simple 2x2 games, analyze auctions, and reason about how information affects strategic interaction.

If possible, play poker regularly before your SIG interviews. Online platforms or home games with friends provide practice in making expected value decisions under uncertainty and pressure — exactly the skill SIG is hiring for.

While SIG doesn't have a formal mental math test like Optiver's 80-in-8, speed with arithmetic is still tested and expected. You need to compute expected values, pot odds, and probabilities quickly during interview discussions.

Practice with Zetamac daily, aiming for a score of 40+ in 2 minutes. Focus particularly on multiplication and percentage calculations, as these come up most frequently in EV problems. Learn to convert between fractions, decimals, and percentages quickly — SIG's questions often involve reasoning about odds in fractional form.

For probability foundations, work through "A First Course in Probability" by Sheldon Ross and "Fifty Challenging Problems in Probability" by Mosteller. Focus on conditional probability, Bayes' theorem, and combinatorics. SIG's probability questions often involve card-drawing scenarios, dice games, and sequential decision problems.

Review SIG compensation data to understand the pay structure.

For candidates serious about SIG, Quant Blueprint's coaching program offers dedicated preparation with mentors who understand SIG's game-theory-heavy format. Our team of 10 quant traders and researchers run mock expected value exercises, poker-style decision scenarios, and probability speed rounds tailored to what SIG actually asks — so you walk into your interview already fluent in the firm's unique decision-making language.