I’m Annanay Kapila. I studied mathematics at St. John’s College, Cambridge (BA, MMath) and later became a quantitative trader in HFT. I initially worked at Flow Traders in Amsterdam before getting headhunted to work at Tower Research Capital in London. I’ve worked on both signal and execution research for crypto and futures strategies ranging from sub-second and multi-minute time horizons. Today I run a company that’s building a new futures exchange to enable 24/7 trading on U.S. equities.
I’ll be hosting an AMA on November 27th at 1:30PM GMT. Ask me about anything!
Here are some thematic ideas:
Algorithmic and quantitative trading strategies
Careers and interviews in HFT and MM
Market microstructure and exchange designs
YC and entrepreneurship
I’m really looking forward to this AMA and answering your questions. November 27th – see you there!
Hi Anannay,
I’m curious about how the skill set differs when working on the exchange side, building and operating an exchange, compared to quantitative research roles, where the focus is on understanding and exploiting exchange behaviour and other market participants. Could you share your perspective on the contrast between these two skill sets?
In the FAQ of QFEX, it says “With QFEX, traders and investors can become the broker, able to set prices themselves and not rely on a market-maker.” Can you explain a bit more on how this works in terms of customers setting prices and how that affects the spread. Additionally if you have time, are there any liquidity issues trading outside of the usual market hours that could also affect the spread customers pay. Thank you.
Hi @annanaykapila Sir,
I am looking for a career in Quant. I would like to start as an SDE or a Quant Dev. Then if other roles interest me, I would like to move to Research or Trading.
At present, my biggest challenge is how should I make my resume stand out as a fresher (Tier2 2025 BTech CS Grad). My qualifications are Expert on CF, Python (Django, Data Visualization) and C++ Projects. As most of the hiring is from top IITs, what steps should I take to get selected. Would like to have your suggestions and preparation strategies I should follow and the time, I need to prepare if I can give around 30-36 hrs of time per week.
Thanks
Hey Annanay. How does day-to-day work at an exchange differ from life at an established HFT firm? And given that QFEX is still new, what approaches are you taking to build credibility and earn the trust of traditional market participants?
Hi @annanaykapila sir, I’m interested in building a career in Quant Trading. can you please guide me how I should prepare? and i also want to know: How to build a strong resume even if I’m not from a top Tier 1 university in my bachelor (I’m in 2nd year) I’m also planning to do a master’s from a top university, how much does it increase my chances of getting into top firms like Jane Street, HRT,Optiver etc.
Hi Annanay - this may be slightly off-thread, but I’m curious: how did you go about building a team capable of launching an exchange from scratch? And with AI dominating most investor attention these days, was it challenging to convince YC to back a non-AI startup? What was that experience like? Finally, do you have any specific advice for other founders working to build successful startups?
Hello, the quantitative trader path is not available yet on bequant; for those of us who’d like to learn more about market microstructure (starting from almost zero, beyond the absolute basics of markets), do you have any advice on how to get started?
How would you build up knowledge step by step?
Any recommended books, courses, blogs, papers, or other resources for beginners in microstructure
And are there any practical exercises or projects you’d suggest to make the theory more concrete (e.g. using order book data, simple simulations, etc.)?
Would really appreciate any structured path or resource recommendations from people already working in this field! Thank you
