FPGA Engineer Intern (Summer 2025 - Chicago)

As Optiver’s FPGA Engineer Intern, you'll own projects directly impacting Optiver's world-class trading systems. You will work on creating solutions that solve business challenges effectively and efficiently, focusing on nanosecond response times, highly parallelised algorithms and customised low-level networking.

What you’ll do:

Led by our in-house education team, you will play a key role in advancing our FPGA technology, working on projects that push the boundaries of performance and efficiency. You will:

• Experience tight feedback loops and see the impact of your code in just a few weeks.
• Work closely with senior Engineers and Traders to build latency-critical applications, parallel systems and networking interfaces.
• Tackle complex, real-world problems to enhance your critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

You will work on projects that blend cutting-edge FPGA technology with real-world trading strategies, directly contributing to the efficiency and performance of our trading systems. For example:

• Supporting new networking protocols – think 25G and 100G interfaces.
• Developing applications with our Traders to improve our trading strategies and success rates.
• Make your mark on our future trading systems by trailblazing new domain areas – from high-precision timestamping to new proprietary inter-system communication protocols.

What you’ll get:

You’ll join a culture of collaboration and excellence where you’ll be surrounded by curious thinkers and creative problem solvers. Driven by a passion for continuous improvement, you’ll thrive in a high-performing environment alongside talented colleagues working collectively to tackle the toughest challenges in the financial markets.

Additionally, you’ll receive:

• A highly-competitive internship compensation package
• Optiver-covered flights, living accommodations and commuting stipends (where applicable)
• Office perks, including fully paid commuting expenses, daily breakfast and lunch, social events and clubs

Who you are:

• Working towards a bachelor's, master's, or PhD in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, graduating between December 2025 and June 2026
• Possess strong engineering instincts and academic experience in digital design with FPGAs or ASICs
• Experienced in writing hardware in VHDL, Verilog, or SystemsVerilog
• Passionate about clean code, simple, well-architected systems, and continuous improvement

Diversity statement

Optiver is committed to diversity and inclusion.

For answers to some of our most frequently asked questions, refer to our Campus FAQs.

*We accept one application per role per year. If you have previously applied to this position during this season and have been unsuccessful, you can reapply once the next recruitment season begins in 2025.