What A Trading Firm Actually Wants To Know Before They Give You Capital

Introduction

If you want to run money as a quantitative portfolio manager, there is a gap between thinking you are ready and actually being ready. That gap becomes painfully visible when you sit down for your first interview from a serious firm.

A well-designed interview is not a formality. It is a diagnostic. Every question probes a specific dimension of your readiness: Do you understand your strategy deeply enough to articulate its edge? Can you explain where it fails? Do you know your numbers? Did you build the thing, or did you watch someone else build it?

Here is what that process reveals about what you need to know.