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Career Kickstarter - Tech

Optiver
🇳🇱AmsterdamStudentInternPosted September 29, 2026

About the Role

Career Kickstarter: Tech is a five-day, all-expenses-paid program at Optiver's Amsterdam headquarters for students eager to explore the engineering challenges of building mission-critical trading systems that keep global markets moving.

  • Work through hands-on coding sessions, system design workshops and a collaborative engineering project that mirrors the work of Optiver's engineers.
  • Get an introduction to the trading concepts that matter from an engineering perspective - no prior knowledge of trading or financial markets is required.
  • Take part in lectures and panel sessions with senior engineers to explore potential career paths and understand how real systems are designed, built and improved.
  • Use the same AI tools, platforms and workflows as Optiver's engineering teams to navigate real codebases and datasets.
  • Full-time Education Team mentors provide guidance and feedback throughout the program, which runs 10-14 May, 2027.
  • Top performers will be considered for a direct offer to join Optiver as a Graduate Software Engineer.

Responsibilities

  • Work on a real engineering project that challenges you to design, build and iterate as part of a real engineering team
  • Join lectures and panel sessions with senior engineers to explore potential career paths and understand how real systems are designed, built and improved
  • Take part in system design workshops to learn how high-performance systems are architected, optimised and scaled
  • Use the same AI tools, platforms and workflows as our engineering teams to navigate real codebases and datasets, test ideas and move faster
  • Demonstrate your potential during the program to be considered for a direct offer to join Optiver as a Graduate Software Engineer

Requirements

  • Be a current student or graduate (BSc, MSc or PhD) in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or a related technical field, with a graduation date between May 2025 and February 2028
  • Be proficient in industry-standard coding languages such as C++, Python, or Java, with a strong understanding of underlying computer architecture and system operations
  • Have a solid grasp of algorithms, memory and concurrency models, CPU-architecture, operating systems and relational databases
  • Be studying, or have graduated from, a university in the EU, EEA or UK
  • Be able to demonstrate at the time of application that you have the requisite visa or other travel arrangements or authorisations in place to allow you to attend the program in person
  • Be able to start full-time as a Software Engineer directly after the program, or at the latest by March 2028
  • You're curious, collaborative and excited to apply your problem-solving and engineering skills to real-world systems
  • No finance or trading experience required

What You'll Get

  • All-expenses-paid five-day program
  • Daily breakfast, lunch, coffee and more
  • Fully covered accommodation and travel expenses
  • Mentorship and feedback from the full-time Education Team
  • Opportunity to be considered for a direct offer to join Optiver as a Graduate Software Engineer