i'm a CS new grad (2025) and Two Sigma is on my list because the comp is genuinely wild compared to normal software jobs. but everything i read makes it sound like they expect you to be a math PhD who can also code.
i took calc, linear algebra, probability, stats. decent grades but not like... top-of-class quant nerd territory. is the probability round survivable if you're not coming from a finance or hard sciences background? or is this basically only realistic for people who've been grinding Quant Guide for six months?
anxious about wasting a shot.
2 replies
careerveteran
the quant rounds are harder for SWE new grads than they are for experienced folks who've had to think about probability in production. but they're not unapproachable. conditional probability, Bayes, basic combinatorics, expected value. brush up on those. you're not expected to price options, you're expected to think clearly under uncertainty.
the coding bar is the bigger filter at the new grad level. most new grads underestimate it.
ds_dmitri
second what careerveteran said. two sigma SWE new grad loop is hard but it's hard in a normal way. the probability stuff is intro-stats level, not quant finance level. what trips people up is not doing it verbally under pressure. practice talking through probability problems out loud.