[English] 2026 Summer Internship Search Recap

This is the English version, for Chinese version please see the post here.

Out of pure laziness, I just asked Gemini Pro to translate for me.

Preface

Although it is March 2026 already, this post is supposed to be one of my 2025 recap series. There might be another post about other stuff I did in 2025 which I’ve already finished writing, but not polished

After procrastinating for way too long, I’ve finally started writing down my internship search reflection. Honestly, I spent basically the entire year of 2025 looking for a job. It was a long, exhausting grind, but I’m just so glad I finally landed an offer.

This time around, I mainly targeted Software Engineer (SWE), Quantitative Trader (QT), Quantitative Researcher (QR), and Machine Learning Engineer (MLE) roles. While I didn’t get interviews for every single one, I at least managed to snag OAs and the like.

Interview Experiences & Thoughts

• Google (TW) – SWE
  • Result: Accepted Offer
  • I was terrified of ending up empty-handed, even though I had a decent feeling about this one. The process was actually quite messy—lots of rescheduling and even a no-show. It dragged on forever (applied in November, got the result in March), but hey, thanks for the job. Yay!
• Jane Street (HK) – SWE
  • Result: Final round (Onsite), Rejected
  • They sent an interview invite right when I was feeling most hopeless (rejected in July, but they reached out again in October). After practicing with several seniors and classmates, I cleared the first round. Although the final round went poorly due to communication and comprehension issues, I feel like I gave it my all. Getting to tour their office, eat roast goose in a five-star hotel, and watch the Worlds finals was enough for me. I went home with a “whatever happens, happens” mindset.
• Citadel Securities (SG) – SWE
  • Result: First round, Rejected
  • To be honest, I wasn’t prepared. They grilled me on OOP concepts that I hadn’t brushed up on, plus some very specific C++ knowledge. I tanked it in the first round.
• Jump Trading (SG) – SWE
  • Result: Passed OA, Rejected after HR round
  • I think I yapped too much. I went way off-track, which led to an embarrassing fail at the HR stage. Pretty humiliating.
  • 2026/3/30 Update: They invited me for another interview. I have no idea on why or what role I’m doing for, but I’m giving it a shot
• Optiver (SG) – QT
  • Result: Zoom Interview, Rejected
  • I actually applied for the FutureFocus program. The interview was the final stage, but you still had to perform well within the program to get the offer. They figured out I didn’t know math or how to trade, so I got rejected.
• TikTok (SG) – MLLM Engineer
  • Result: First round, Rejected
  • They realized I didn’t actually know Transformers and ghosted me. Another team reached out for an interview in February, but I turned them down for several reasons (UofT exchange, waiting for Google’s offer, wanting to stay in Taiwan in summer)
• Virtu Financial (SG) – SWE
  • Result: First round, Rejected
  • By the time I interviewed here, I had basically given up. I was exhausted, and since the Google interview went well, I was kind of slacking. The questions leaned toward System Design, which I’m bad at.
• GSA Capital (UK) – SWE
  • Result: Second round, Rejected
  • The interview experience here was actually great. However, because I truly didn’t know System Design, I completely blew the second round.
• (not) Honorable Mentions
  • SIG, Akuna, IMC, DRW… the list of companies where I did OAs is endless. Honestly, the OAs weren’t hard, but somehow they won’t even interview you even you got full marks. Being constantly rejected was draining… At the end, I was just numb to it.

Overall Reflections

Actually, my search for the 2026 Summer internship started as early as March, though back then only Optiver had opened their applications. The real grind didn’t start until June, and I never expected it to last six months, and even stretching all the way to March before I got the final result. That’s why I’ve been so slow to write this reflection (not really; I’m actually just lazy).

In early 2025, after finding out just how much these quant firms pay, I became obsessed with getting in. I even messed around with things like WorldQuant Brain and a bunch of other random certifications. Looking back, that stuff had absolutely zero impact on my resume; it was a pure waste of time and money. It’s clear how delusional I was at the time.

Back then, I was checking for new internship postings almost every single day, applying the very second they went live. In fact, while I was interning at Huawei, I barely did any actual work—I was constantly refreshing company websites and GitHub repos that track internship openings. I even took leaves of absence to do interviews. My manager still gave me a very high performance rating in the end, which makes me feel incredibly guilty.

Eventually, I started getting interviews one after another. At first, I’d get so excited, thinking my big break had finally come. Unfortunately, I managed to screw up almost every single one. That’s on me—my preparation was just too shallow. As a result, I was pretty depressed from July through October, and it wasn’t until I finished the Jane Street interview that I finally started to get my head back in the game.

Plans for the Future

To be honest, I’m fully aware of my own shortcomings—whether it’s ICPC or the internship hunt. I just feel like I lack the drive to push myself to be better right now; I’m definitely in a state of burnout. My hope for the coming year is to take a proper rest. Once I’ve recharged, I want to slowly get stronger and hopefully land an ideal result for 2027 New Grad roles, Master’s applications, or whatever else comes next.

My current roadmap looks somewhat like this:

1. Continue with a Master’s degree and apply for ML or QR-related positions.
2. Look for more off-season internships to gain more experience (money).
3. Keep learning and practicing at my own pace—just slowly getting better.