Jobs › Akuna Capital

Platform Engineer Intern, Summer 2027

Akuna Capital · Chicago, IL · Engineering

Posted Jul 14, 2026 · We last checked this listing on Sep 20, 2026

Apply at Akuna Capital

Likely interview questions for this role

Written from this job description, not a generic list. Each one notes what the interviewer is really checking.

Behavioral

Walk me through a project where you automated something that was previously done by hand. What did the system look like before and after?

whether they have real experience building automation, not just running scripts once

Tell me about a time you had to design something for reliability or high availability, even if it was just for a class project or personal system.

exposure to thinking beyond 'does it work' toward 'does it keep working'

Give me an example of a time your code broke something, even in a small way. What happened and what did you change afterward?

honesty and whether they build habits like testing and monitoring after failure

Tell me about a time you disagreed with how a team was doing something technical. What did you do?

whether they can challenge the status quo constructively, which the posting explicitly asks for

Technical

Say you have a Kubernetes cluster and one service keeps getting evicted under memory pressure. How would you figure out why, and what would you check first?

practical debugging instinct with container orchestration, not just textbook definitions

What's the difference between writing infrastructure as a script versus writing it as code you'd actually check into a repo and let other people modify?

understanding of Infrastructure as Code principles like idempotency, version control, and reviewability

Explain how a request might travel from a service running in AWS to another service running in our own data center, in a hybrid setup.

grasp of networking fundamentals and hybrid cloud architecture, since the team explicitly builds this

If a monitoring alert fires at 2am for a system you built, what should that alert actually be telling the on-call person, and what should it not do?

understanding of good alerting design versus noisy, unhelpful alerts

How would you design a system that needs to securely store and rotate secrets, like API keys or credentials, for services running across a cloud and an on-prem environment?

awareness of security and data engineering basics beyond just spinning up infrastructure

What's a math or algorithms concept you find genuinely interesting, and can you walk me through solving a problem using it right now?

raw problem-solving ability and comfort thinking out loud, independent of prior finance knowledge

Situational

You inherit a production system with almost no documentation and you need to make a change safely. What's your process?

discipline around production systems and whether they default to caution or recklessness

You're given a coding problem with a tight time limit, similar to what you'd see under market pressure. How do you decide whether to write a quick working solution first or think through the optimal approach?

speed versus correctness tradeoff under time pressure, which the posting flags as essential

Describe a 10-week project you'd be proud to present at the end, based on what you know about this team so far. What would you want to own?

whether they understand the internship's project ownership model and can scope realistic work

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The full job description

As published by Akuna Capital.

About Akuna:  Akuna Capital is an innovative trading firm with a strong focus on collaboration, cutting-edge technology, data driven solutions, and automation. We specialize in providing liquidity as an options market maker, meaning we are committed to providing competitive quotes that we are willing to both buy and sell. To do this successfully, we design and implement our own low latency technologies, trading strategies, and mathematical models.   Our Founding Partners first conceptualized Akuna in their hometown of Sydney. They opened the firm’s first office in 2011 in the heart of the derivatives industry and the options capital of the world – Chicago. Today, Akuna is proud to operate from additional offices in Sydney, Shanghai, Singapore, and London.  What you’ll do as a Platform Engineer Intern at Akuna:   We are seeking Platform Engineer Interns to join our innovative and growing technology team for our 10-week Akunacademy internship program. You will work within the Platform Engineering Team, gaining expertise through building highly automated operations while monitoring and managing the operational capabilities of systems at Akuna. Each intern takes full ownership of their project, and at the end of the program, has the opportunity to present their work and accomplishments. In this role, you will:   <ul> <li data-leveltext="·" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="1" data-list-defn-props="{"335552541":1,"335559685":720,"335559991":360,"469769226":"Symbol","469769242":[8226],"469777803":"left","469777804":"·","469777815":"hybridMultilevel"}" data-aria-posinset="1" data-aria-level="1">Support and design the ongoing growth, design, and expansion of our Platform offerings to meet the needs of our internal stakeholders with scalable, reliable, and highly available systems </li> </ul> <ul> <li data-leveltext="·" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="1" data-list-defn-props="{"335552541":1,"335559685":720,"335559991":360,"469769226":"Symbol","469769242":[8226],"469777803":"left","469777804":"·","469777815":"hybridMultilevel"}" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="1">Work with our steam aligned and partner platform teams to develop our hybrid cloud platform </li> </ul> <ul> <li data-leveltext="·" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="1" data-list-defn-props="{"335552541":1,"335559685":720,"335559991":360,"469769226":"Symbol","469769242":[8226],"469777803":"left","469777804":"·","469777815":"hybridMultilevel"}" data-aria-posinset="3" data-aria-level="1">Produce clean, well-tested, and documented code with a clear design to support production infrastructure and systems  </li> </ul> <ul> <li data-leveltext="·" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="1" data-list-defn-props="{"335552541":1,"335559685":720,"335559991":360,"469769226":"Symbol","469769242":[8226],"469777803":"left","469777804":"·","469777815":"hybridMultilevel"}" data-aria-posinset="4" data-aria-level="1">Challenge the status quo and help push our organization forward, as we grow beyond the limits of our current tech stack  </li> </ul>  Requirements for this role:  <ul> <li data-leveltext="·" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="3" data-list-defn-props="{"335552541":1,"335559683":0,"335559684":-2,"335559685":720,"335559991":360,"469769226":"Symbol","469769242":[8226],"469777803":"left","469777804":"·","469777815":"hybridMultilevel"}" data-aria-posinset="1" data-aria-level="1">Pursuing a bachelor’s, master’s, or Ph.D. in a technical field (computer science/engineering, math, physics, or equivalent) </li> </ul> <ul> <li data-leveltext="·" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="3" data-list-defn-props="{"335552541":1,"335559683":0,"335559684":-2,"335559685":720,"335559991":360,"469769226":"Symbol","469769242":[8226],"469777803":"left","469777804":"·","469777815":"hybridMultilevel"}" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="1">Graduating by August 2028</li> </ul> <ul> <li data-leveltext="·" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="3" data-list-defn-props="{"335552541":1,"335559683":0,"335559684":-2,"335559685":720,"335559991":360,"469769226":"Symbol","469769242":[8226],"469777803":"left","469777804":"·","469777815":"hybridMultilevel"}" data-aria-posinset="3" data-aria-level="1">Major GPA of 3.5 or above </li> </ul> <ul> <li data-leveltext="·" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="3" data-list-defn-props="{"335552541":1,"335559683":0,"335559684":-2,"335559685":720,"335559991":360,"469769226":"Symbol","469769242":[8226],"469777803":"left","469777804":"·","469777815":"hybridMultilevel"}" data-aria-posinset="4" data-aria-level="1">Legal authorization to work in the U.S. is required on the first day of employment including F-1 students using OPT or STEM </li> </ul> Previous experience in finance or trading is not required. Many of our engineers joined Akuna with little-to-no prior knowledge of the markets, and we pride ourselves on our ability to onboard those new to the industry. Training and continuous education are provided for all engineers to ensure they can build the requisite technical and non-technical skillset for success.   Qualities that make great candidates:   <ul> <li data-leveltext="·" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" data-list-defn-props="{"335552541":1,"335559685":720,"335559991":360,"469769226":"Symbol","469769242":[8226],"469777803":"left","469777804":"·","469777815":"hybridMultilevel"}" data-aria-posinset="1" data-aria-level="1">Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Kubernetes, and AWS Cloud  </li> </ul> <ul> <li data-leveltext="·" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" data-list-defn-props="{"335552541":1,"335559685":720,"335559991":360,"469769226":"Symbol","469769242":[8226],"469777803":"left","469777804":"·","469777815":"hybridMultilevel"}" data-aria-posinset="2" data-aria-level="1">Experience with cloud computing, networking, data engineering and security </li> </ul> <ul> <li data-leveltext="·" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="2" data-list-defn-props="{"335552541":1,"335559685":720,"335559991":360,"469769226":"Symbol","469769242":[8226],"469777803":"left","469777804":"·","469777815":"hybridMultilevel"}" data-aria-posinset="3" data-aria-level="1">Ability to react quickly and accurately to rapidly changing market conditions, including the ability to quickly and accurately respond and/or solve math and coding problems, is an essential function of the role </li> </ul>  In addition to the above technical skills, Akuna values diversity of experience and perspective. We believe that engineers with varied backgrounds and interests allow us to approach problems from unique angles and to uncover innovative, optimal solutions. We want everyone to feel empowered to apply; we welcome your application, and we strongly encourage you to take the first steps in joining us in the future!  **Resumes must be submitted in PDF format.  By applying to this role, you are indicating this is your top preference and acknowledge you will not be considered for other Quant and/or Tech roles at Akuna this recruiting season. This acknowledgement does not limit applications to Trading roles - in addition to this role, you may apply to any Trader roles of interest.  We are an AI-friendly company and encourage employees to leverage AI in their daily work. However, AI assistance is not permitted during interviews or assessments. Our interview process is designed to evaluate your individual skills and judgment, and the use of AI tools will result in disqualification from the hiring process. In accordance with the Illinois Equal Pay Act, the minimum annualized base salary starts at $145,000. Exact compensation offered may vary based on many factors including, but not limited to, the candidate’s experience, qualifications, and skill set. The minimum base salary herein was determined in good faith by Akuna Capital LLC.

Apply at Akuna Capital

Platform Engineer Intern, Summer 2027

Likely interview questions for this role

Practice this interview out loud.

The full job description

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Expression of Interest: 2027 Trading Sneak Peek Weeks