About Wintermute

Wintermute is a leading market maker of digital assets globally. We manage hundreds of millions in assets and trade more than $1B+/day across dozens of different trading platforms. Culturally, we combine 1) the best-in-class trading and technology professionalism coming from 70+ years of combined team’s expertise in traditional HFT companies like Optiver and 2) technology startup culture, as we are moving very fast and empowering people to act like owners.

Wintermute provides liquidity algorithmically across most vested exchanges in crypto, across CeFi and DeFi, on-screen and OTC, as well as supporting high profile blockchain projects. At Wintermute, we believe in the decentralization of finance and we believe that trading companies of the future are technology companies, not financial services providers.

Wintermute is a proprietary trading business. We are a Series B highly profitable startup backed by here.

Working at Wintermute

We are looking for an Algorithmic Trader with strong coding skills (Python) and a curiosity about hft, market making and crypto trading. At Wintermute, you will be responsible for your own “desk” right from the start. You will have the opportunity to develop your own product (trading algorithms, trading strategies), while also getting advice and guidance from very experienced traders and developers, including the founders/management team. You will get a lot of independence and responsibility right away, and you’ll learn at an unprecedented speed! No legacy systems, no corporate bureaucracy, no multiple levels of approvals. It is up to you to make an impact. You will act like an owner and your incentives (incl. equity) will be completely aligned with those of the company!

What will you work on

After a short training period, you will be assigned your own “desk” with related P&L responsibility and you’ll become an owner of that desk. You’ll be looking how to build and/or expand your desk across various levers: building new strategies, improving existing strategies and adding new trading products, as well as improving the technology behind the trading. You’ll need to analyse large amounts of trading and transaction data, generate insights, prioritise them and build solutions based on your findings. We will share more technical details in the interviews. The point is: there is no limit set by the company!

Hard Skills Requirements

• Strong Python skills (or Java or C++) - you have 1-3 years of coding experience, be that through work, study or personal project experience - we will test!
• Programming fundamentals (in any of C++, C#, Java, OOP)
• Understand blockchain basics: transactions, wallets, smart contracts, double spend, transactions pool, mining - we will test
• Have a general understanding overview of current defi landscape: DEX, aggregators, main protocols
• Experience interacting with defi protocols - lending, staking, trading - can be personal
• Excellent quantitative and analytical skills - we will test
• Advanced trading knowledge isn’t required but a strong willingness and curiosity to learn algorithmic, high-frequency, quantitative and market making trading is crucial

Other Requirements

• Have an owner mentality - you focus on ultimate result (short and long-term P&L for the company), focus on strategically growing the business for the future vs “cashing-in” fast
• Love problem solving, and love seeing your products work; you do whatever it takes to do what’s needed (trading, coding, analysing data, collaborating)
• Determined, ambitious yet humble, willing to work hard and learn on the way
• Like meritocracy and being judged by what you deliver
• Have an entrepreneurial mindset versus working 9-to-5 or “work to pay bills”; prepared to work non-standard working hours (since we are a high-growth startup operating in 24/7 crypto world)
• Like working in the team environment (not fully remote), at least half-time working from our London office

Wintermute Offer

• A unique opportunity to work on very interesting projects, get the level of responsibility and ownership that would take 5-10 years to get in a traditional trading company/bank/hedge fund
• A unique opportunity to join a high growth startup and one of the strongest and highest potential crypto startups based in Europe
• Great company culture: informal, non-hierarchical, ambitious, highly professional yet startupy, collaborative and entrepreneurial
• A cool office in central London with a sci-fi touch
• Weekly team events, such as team lunches, team dinners, team board games and Dota playing sessions; these are not obligatory in any sense, but this is what we like to do
• Aligned incentive structure: a significant part of your compensation is similar to that of owners - equity package, performance-based bonuses, and the best thing - your contribution directly impacts both and the upside is unlimited

Tips for Successful Application

• Only apply to us if you are genuinely interested or curious about this role and the space; this is not for someone who is just looking for “a job” or is looking to maximize their short-term fixed salary
• Do your research: look at our website and social media channelsWrite us a short, honest, and direct message if you’d like to apply. Tell us about why you are interested in crypto and market making in general and in Wintermute in particular.
• Do not send us generic copy paste applications, we are looking for authentic people who share our interests, values and ambitions! If you don’t have some obviously matching experience or skills, make sure you state very clearly what you can bring or how your experience is relevant (but note, we do require Python knowledge)
• Prepare to be tested on your Python knowledge. Your knowledge and ability to get things done fast is very important to us
• Do your homework on what hft/market making/algo trading is. (Hint: we are not in the business of position taking, directional betting, stock/token picking, technical analysis, “AI” (as in the buzz-word) and we are not a research business for the sake of research)
• We get a lot of applications, so unfortunately, we won’t be able to proceed if you simply press “submit button”; we do promise to reply to everyone who puts time and effort into making the application relevant!