DV Trading is a North American proprietary trading firm headquartered in Chicago, making markets on derivatives and securities exchanges worldwide. It was founded in Toronto in 2006 by Dino Verbrugge, with Jared Vegosen opening the Chicago office in 2007. For several years it operated as a subsidiary of the brokerage Rosenthal Collins Group, before the two principals spun it out as an independent firm under DV Group in 2016.
It has since grown to more than 500 traders and staff across Chicago, New York and London, with satellite operations in Toronto, Miami, Houston, Dubai and the Bahamas. The firm trades commodity futures, fixed income, equities, options, FX and cryptocurrency products, and its energy desk, DV Energy, trades physical and financial crude, refined products and natural gas. The group has expanded by acquisition, taking in Eldorado Trading, Allston Trading, Centaur Markets and TradeLink Holdings.
DV trades its own capital, so the process is about raw problem-solving and trading instinct rather than client-facing polish. The floor is usually described as young, high-energy and entrepreneurial, and a mid-sized firm leaves room to have a direct impact early.
Desks at DV have real autonomy, so the style and the questions vary a lot depending on who you interview with. The energy desk in London is not the quant desk in Chicago. Research the specific team and its asset class rather than preparing for a generic prop firm.
- 1Recruiter screen. An introductory call on your background, your motivation and the role.
- 2Online assessments. Mental maths, sequences and probability. Quant and developer tracks get a coding screen instead.
- 3Technical interviews. One or more rounds with traders: brainteasers, probability, market intuition and your resume.
- 4Final round. Deeper technical work, case studies and behavioural interviews.
Candidates consistently report the process running slowly and at times disorganised, with multi-week or even multi-month gaps between stages. That is not a signal about your candidacy. Stay patient, follow up politely, and keep practising between rounds.
Stage 1: Recruiter screen
An introductory call with the talent acquisition team: your background, your interest in trading and in DV specifically, and your own questions about the role and the desk.
Treat it as a genuine filter rather than a formality. Be ready to say why you want to trade and why DV rather than a larger or better-known competitor.
How to prepare
Have concise answers to why you want to become a trader and why DV over its competitors. Then do the desk research: DV trades everything from energy to crypto, and tailoring your answer to the specific team is the fastest way to separate yourself on this call.
Stage 2: Online assessments
One or more timed tests, closely mirroring the standard prop-trading assessment used across the industry.
| Test | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Mental maths | Fast multiplication, division, addition and subtraction of multi-digit numbers under tight time. Candidates frequently mention three-digit arithmetic |
| Sequences | Pattern recognition: identify the rule behind a number or symbol sequence and predict the next term |
| Probability | Quick probability and expected value questions, folded into the assessment or the early interviews |
Quant developer and technologist roles get a different early screen, with a coding component instead. Candidates have reported separate Linux and Python interviews as well as interactive coding rounds.
How to prepare
- Arithmetic, drilled daily for speed and accuracy on the Math Trainer, which lets you target the exact multi-digit work these tests demand.
- Sequences, on the Sequence Trainer until you spot a rule quickly under the clock. Our guide to sequence problems walks through the pattern families worth knowing.
- Probability, building fluency with expected value and the basics on the probability questions.
Stage 3: Technical interviews
One or more rounds with a trader, usually a junior trader first and then a more senior desk head. Multiple candidates describe these as conversational rather than adversarial, with interviewers who are comfortable to talk to and not trying to trip you up.
What they cover
- Brainteasers and logic puzzles. Classic green-book problems testing structured reasoning under pressure.
- Probability and statistics. Probability, expected value and basic statistics.
- Mental maths. More live arithmetic, sometimes woven into the probability questions.
- Market sense. Open-ended questions about markets and how you think, plus case-style questions on data and field intuition.
- Your resume. A genuine technical walk through your background and past projects.
Content varies widely by desk. Some interviewers ask about market dynamics specific to their asset class, and quant-leaning rounds can be framed around modelling, for instance what data you would feed a model to predict the value of a portfolio.
How to prepare
Work the brainteasers, particularly the probability questions and the reasoning puzzles, for the patterns these rounds reward.
Practise narrating your approach as you solve rather than delivering a finished answer, because that is what these interviews are actually measuring. Know your resume cold and be ready to defend every line, especially quantitative or programming work. And read up on the desk's asset class so you can offer an honest basic view of how those markets work.
Stage 4: Final round
Deeper on both sides. Depending on the desk this can mean additional trader interviews, case studies built around field and data intuition, and a behavioural conversation with the hiring manager.
The technical half
- Case studies. Applied problems where you reason about data, markets or a trading scenario rather than recite formulas. Show how you break a messy problem into structured steps.
- Expected value and games. Computing expected value on the fly. Our market games are the right practice for the trading-intuition side, and the guide to make me a market covers quoting a two-way price.
- Deeper quant or coding. On the quant and developer tracks, more involved technical discussion.
The fit half
- Motivation. Why trading and why DV, with more depth than the screen. The entrepreneurial, autonomous culture means they want people who actually want to build something.
- Pressure and competitiveness. Are you a competitive person, and how you handle setbacks.
- Team fit. At a mid-sized firm with real desk autonomy this carries weight. Prepare what makes you stand out and whether you are a team player.
How to carry the day
Break the case problems into manageable steps and check your work as you go. Explain your reasoning at every step so the interviewer can follow it. Be authentic about fit, because DV's culture is a real filter and a generic prop-trading pitch lands badly against a specific desk. Rehearse solving out loud and under time pressure so the format itself is familiar.
Closing remarks
DV's process rewards fundamentals over polish: fast accurate arithmetic, solid probability, sharp pattern recognition, and reasoning clearly out loud under pressure. Because the firm is diversified across energy, equities, fixed income, FX and crypto with autonomous desks, the questions you actually face depend heavily on the team, so research that desk specifically rather than the firm in general.
The common mistake is treating DV as a fallback and under-preparing because it is less famous than some competitors. The bar is high and the firm is selective. Candidates who put months into mental maths, sequences, probability and brainteasers, and who can say credibly why they want to trade at DV in particular, give themselves the best shot.
Work through everything we have for DV Trading, and read our full interview guide for how these stages compare across firms.