Quant Interview Market Making Roadmap
A market making interview roadmap for fair value, spread width, quote updates, inventory, and game review.
Quant trading candidates preparing for market making and trading game interviews.
Begin with fair value
Every market making game starts with a fair value estimate. Practice turning incomplete information into a midpoint and an uncertainty range. The estimate does not need fake precision, but it does need a reason.
Set spread from uncertainty
Your bid-ask spread should reflect uncertainty, adverse selection, and inventory risk. Wider markets are appropriate when information is weak. Tighter markets make sense only when your value estimate is stronger and the game rules justify the risk.
Update after trades
A trade is information. If buyers repeatedly lift your offer, ask whether your fair value is too low, your spread is too tight, or the counterparty has better information. The roadmap should train update quality, not just initial quotes.
Concrete practice loop
Run a short game, log fair value, bid, ask, inventory, trade, and reason, then review the largest decision error. One session might focus only on initial width; another might focus only on reacting to one-sided flow.
Add communication
Market making interviews are live. Say why your market is wide, why it moved, and how inventory affects the next quote. A clear rationale often matters more than a deceptively precise number.
Common mistakes
Candidates quote too tightly, ignore inventory, or treat profit and loss as the only review metric. A lucky profit can hide bad quotes, and a loss can come from a reasonable decision under uncertainty.
Practice the pattern
Use the LeetQuidity curriculum and calibration to turn this topic into a focused practice plan.