Quantitative Trader

Build something people love

Wealthsimple is Canada’s leading financial innovator. The company offers a full suite of simple, sophisticated financial products across managed investing, do-it-yourself trading, cryptocurrency, tax filing, spending and saving. Wealthsimple currently serves more than 4 million Canadians and holds over $155 billion in assets under administration. The company was founded in 2014 by a team of financial experts and technology entrepreneurs, and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

We're proud of what we've built — and we're just getting started. Read our Culture Manual and learn more about how we work.

About the Capital Markets team

Capital Markets is responsible for the company’s financial markets facing businesses including daily trading operations, opportunity identification and growing those business lines. As Wealthsimple’s interface to the markets we are ultimately responsible for the execution of all the firm’s orders both on behalf of our clients and the company’s own trading activities. In order to accomplish this we work closely with and partner with functions across the company.

About the role

As a Quantitative Trader at Wealthsimple, you’ll be conducting research and building models that describe how the markets behave, turn that research into algorithms and business insights to produce an edge for our clients and the company. You will also manage the daily trading operations of those systems. In this role you will have the opportunity to apply the theoretical, coming up with ideas, simulating to prove a thesis, validating with real world results and dynamically responding to changing conditions.

We’re looking for self-starters who are excited about the prospect of building a new function, defining new tools and pipelines and ultimately owning the outcomes.

What you'll do

• Build quantitative models that describe and predict how markets move; this will involve conducting research and understanding liquidity profiles, price movement and market microstructure.
• Model the characteristics of order flow, including flow toxicity, classification of activity, to inform and optimize routing, execution and risk decisions.
• Develop trading algorithms to programmatically decide how orders are generated and routed, and work alongside engineers to deploy those systems into production.
• Manage the daily trading operations of our algorithmic trading systems.
• Respond to changing market conditions to ensure algorithms are placing orders optimally.
• Design and maintain simulation frameworks to validate algorithm performance against historical data.
• Partner cross-functionally with engineering, data science, operations and product teams.
• Skills you bring
• 3+ years of experience in quantitative trading, quantitative research, algorithmic trading development, or a closely related capital markets role
• STEM degree from a leading institution
• Excellent Python scripting
• Solid foundation in statistics, probability, stochastic processes, and quantitative methods
• Understanding of Canadian equity market structure
• Familiarity with low-latency trading technologies and methodologies
• CIRO-registered as a trader is an asset
• Who you are
• You take ownership, and want to directly drive outcomes. You will come up with the ideas, prove those ideas out, get them implemented and be responsible for how they run day in and day out. Holding yourself accountable for the results.
• You are data driven and methodical. You are comfortable working with statistics and will follow the numbers, not force them to conform to a thesis.
• You like to understand the full system, if something does not align with your mental model you will ask questions and dig in.
• You have a passion for financial markets, including news-moving items, financial engineering, various assets, market microstructure and the technology that enables markets.
• You can communicate complex concepts clearly, and are adept at adjusting based on your audience.
• Why Wealthsimple?
• 🌸 Top-tier health benefits and life insurance
• 📈 Long-term group savings with employer match, through Wealthsimple for Business
• 🌴 20 vacation days, 4 wellness days, and unlimited sick and mental health days per year*
• ✈️ 90 days away: work outside Canada for up to 90 days per year*
• 👥 Employee resource groups, including Rainbow (2SLGBTQ), Women of WS, and Black at WS
• 🌎 We are a hybrid team with over 1,500 employees across North America. The people are one of the best parts of working here: you'll collaborate with incredibly talented, curious, and driven teammates who are deeply committed to doing great work.
• *Unlimited paid sick days, Wellness Days and the 90 day away program do not apply to certain roles.
• ICYMI
• Technology & Innovation at Wealthsimple: We move quickly and build thoughtfully. That means we're always looking for better ways to work — whether that's new tools, AI, or rethinking how we approach a problem. We don't expect you to have all the answers, but we do expect curiosity and a willingness to evolve alongside the products we're building.
• Inclusion Statement: We're building products for a diverse world, and we need a diverse team to do it well. We strongly encourage applications from everyone, regardless of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability status.
• Accessibility Statement: We're committed to an accessible hiring experience. If you need any accommodations throughout the interview process, please let us know — we'll work with you to make sure you have what you need. We also welcome any feedback on how we can better accommodate candidates with accessibility needs.
• AI in Hiring: We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of our hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our team but don't replace human judgment – all final hiring decisions are made by people. If you have questions about how your data is used, reach out to us.