Early Careers

Your career starts here! With over two decades of nurturing talent, we’ve consistently helped graduates forge successful career paths - you’re in safe hands.

What We Offer

Mako has multiple, early career pathways for aspiring traders and technologists, including summer internships for those in their penultimate year of study and graduate programmes for those looking to start their careers.

We have carefully designed our programmes to give participants the tools and knowledge they need to start their career journeys in the best possible way. Our internships are an opportunity to dip your toes into the complex world of options market making to see if it matches your aptitude and interest. Our graduate programmes are designed to support intelligent and driven students to take their first steps on the way to building a meaningful and engaging career in their chosen discipline.

Our six-week Summer internship runs annually from July and our 18-month Graduate Trader programme commences in late September, as does our 12-month Software Engineer graduate programme. Please check the opportunities page for any open applications.

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“With our first intake in 2020, our graduate trader programme has built upon the long-standing trainee trader teaching that has been part of our DNA since our inception. The graduate trader programme runs alongside the software engineer programme and all candidates get the opportunity to learn about the business and experience some first class options theory training before they move into their own specific programmes. We place a great deal of emphasis throughout on the educational element of our programmes as well as the practical application.

Mako has always fostered a culture of learning and not being afraid to ask questions and make mistakes. I have always been impressed and humbled by the willingness of my colleagues who are passionate about sharing their experiences, teaching inquisitive minds and encouraging collaboration across the business. I take immense joy in seeing young people come into our industry and embrace the constant learning and excitement of financial markets that I have been lucky to be a part of since 1987!”

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Miles Hayward
Business Partner

Graduate Programme for Aspiring Traders

The graduate programme will set you on a two-year trajectory to becoming an Options Market Maker. We have developed and iterated the structure over time to complement the changing face of the industry; it is fully immersive and can be a springboard to success for motivated candidates. We have several years of experience running the programme, and many of our senior traders have built the foundations of their careers with its invaluable support.

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Programme Highlights

Two-Week Intensive Course

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Desk Rotations

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Desk Assignment 

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Natalie Pounanov
Graduate Trader

“My time at Mako so far has been really positive. During the initial rotations, we got exposure to different markets and styles of trading, and drawing from these experiences helps a lot once you are on your permanent desk. I like that I get to do a bit of everything, ranging from programming quantitative models to giving prices to brokers over the phone, analysing flow, and understanding fundamental research. Mako’s very friendly culture is especially helpful, as people welcome you asking questions and are happy to help.”

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Swastik Dhopte
Graduate Trader

“I work on the Index Prop desk at Mako. The graduate programme has been a great learning experience for me over the last 9 months. I guess it is very unique in the sense that the focus is not just confined to understanding trading or how your desk works, but also towards improving your general numeric aptitude through weekly mock trading and game theory. I feel the best part about the programme is that it allows the graduates sufficient time to fill in the gaps in their skillsets through projects, responsibilities and education which possibly cover every aspect related to trading.”

Graduate Programme for Software Engineers

Our graduate programme for Software Engineers will put you straight to work, making an impact on projects directly tied to Mako’s revenue. For one year, you will be a part of a structured programme that will include rotations through our software teams as well as more formal classroom training. During this time, you will also be assigned a buddy, and within the first month, have the opportunity to work on meaningful tasks that plug directly into our trading system. The aim of the programme is not only to grow your software skills, but also to give you a broader understanding of our business and how you impact it as part of the development team.

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“At Mako, the collaborations between technology and trading takes centre stage from day one. Our graduate traders and software engineers embark on a unique journey, sharing option theory classes and engaging in joint training projects as part of their induction programme.

Mako’s software engineering and trading graduate programmes are designed to nurture and strengthen this vital relationship. The programme empowers newcomers to fluently speak the language of both trading and technology, fostering seamless communication and an exchange of ideas. Emphasising teamwork and cooperation, our projects create an environment where innovation thrives. In software development, we uphold a dynamic and data-driven methodology to tackle trading challenges. Our graduate engineers are trained to use the Agile framework to achieve quick iterative cycles that yield tangible results. Within their first 6 weeks, every graduate engineer is tasked with the goal of delivering at least one feature to end users. The comprehensive trading theoretical training combined with practical exposure empowers our graduate engineers to confidently contribute to our next-generation front office trading system.”

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Louie Nguyen
Front Office Engineering Manager

Programme Highlights

Training

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Mentorship

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Team Rotations

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Application Process

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Max Wilson-Hebben
Graduate Software Engineer

“Being a graduate software engineer at Mako has been an exhilarating experience. I’ve had the chance to take ownership of innovative projects, in a highly collaborative environment. The flat structure and supportive culture at Mako makes it an enjoyable, rewarding place to work.”

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Pratyush Ravishankar
Graduate Software Engineer

“The engineers here have decades of experience in the trading industry, designing innovative latency-driven solutions to the hardest problems. There are a few places where you are able to personally collaborate and iterate with such individuals, giving me an unparalleled learning environment as a graduate engineer at the start of my career.”

Internship Programmes


The internship provides an introduction to what it takes to become a trader or technologist in one of the most complex markets. You’ll get a taste of options theory, price discovery and financial modelling. You will also be introduced to the technical side of what we do by learning about coding, data analysis and systems engineering to name a few. Successful interns have a direct path to the graduate programmes.

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Programme Highlights

Trading  

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Technology

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Entry Requirements

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Alejandro Gonzalez Perez
Software Engineer

“The best thing about working for Mako is how much the people here encourage and empower you to develop innovative solutions to complex engineering problems. From leveraging cutting-edge technologies to developing radically new approaches to the existing trading stack, every day is different and exciting.”

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Jessie Hammond
Trading Application Support Engineer

“I really enjoy working in tech at Mako. The challenges we come across and being able to think of innovative solutions really makes the work I do worthwhile. Furthermore, it’s helped me to develop my skill and interest in coding and other languages I wasn’t able to learn before, such as bash!”