KQT PERSPECTIVES
Allan Sherer, Senior Software Developer Analyst

“We are a lean and productive group that achieves our goals through respect, teamwork and individual hard work.”

There are few places of work where you can see the effects of your contributions so rapidly and with such dramatic impact. A typical day at Koch Quantitative Trading might involve implementation of a new trading strategy, the designing of new tools to help test existing and future ideas, or research into technologies or the markets. We live through the ups and downs of the production trading models every day, constantly trying to improve them or create the next great thing, so there is a real craving and drive for new ideas and tools.

As a member of the technology group, you are treated as an equal with your teammates and peers the day you walk in. After getting a minor amount of background information, you can dig into the technology and begin making a difference right away.

We have an incredible amount of opportunity here. There are several different ways to apply a bright mind and a willingness to learn. The technology platform is varied and relatively young. Although we have production systems in certain technologies, we are not married to one solution.

Every team member realizes that each of the others brings different but valuable perspectives on our tasks. We are encouraged to speak up and challenge every viewpoint, coming to agreeable conclusions that we can act on with confidence and force. We are a practical group. We value good listening and good programming over grandstanding and bleeding-edge technology implementations. We try to apply what will work best for the current problem but keep potential problems in mind.

Even though we are part of a very large company, the technology developers at KQT are hands-on in every way. We realize that we are all responsible for the bottom line for both Koch and our group’s success. Therefore, if something is not running correctly or it can be made to run better, we don’t leave it up to someone else; we attack it right then. We are the users of our technology just like the others on the trading floor. If the product we develop stinks, then we should know it right away, without waiting on some anonymous offsite user community to validate.

We are a lean and productive group that achieves our goals through respect, teamwork, and individual hard work. At the end of the day, this hard work is realized by:

1. Successful trading strategies generating profit for KQT
   
2. Higher research efficiency resulting in quicker and more accurate testing of new ideas and strategies, and
   
3. The fostering of new trading ideas due to technological advancement and improvements.

These goals allow for an interesting and driven work ethic that makes it a very cool place to work.

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