GTS is a New York-based electronic trading firm founded in 2006 by Ari Rubenstein, David Lieberman, and Amit Livnat. It trades across equities, ETFs, options, futures, currencies, and fixed income, and its market-making arm, GTS Securities, is regularly cited as handling somewhere in the range of 3 to 5 percent of daily U.S. cash equities volume. The firm is best known for its 2016 acquisition of Barclays’ Designated Market Maker business on the NYSE floor, which made GTS the largest DMM on the exchange, responsible for quoting and stabilizing trading in well over a thousand listed companies, including a large share of NYSE IPOs and ETF listings.
Because of the DMM role, GTS engineers work on problems that sit closer to market structure than a typical prop-trading shop: opening and closing auctions, halt and reopen logic, and quoting obligations that exist because of the exchange relationship, not just proprietary alpha. The core technology team builds and maintains the low-latency systems that support that business alongside GTS’s other trading operations, with postings for roles like Software Engineer and Junior C++ Developer on the Trading Systems Development team. The firm has additional offices in Chicago, South Florida, London, Paris, Warsaw, and Israel, but engineering hiring is concentrated in New York.
Process
Candidate reports describe a loop that starts with a recruiter or HR screen covering background, motivation, and basic fit. From there, engineering candidates typically see a data-structures-and-algorithms round, similar in spirit to what you’d prepare for with a general algorithm patterns review, and a separate round focused specifically on C or C++ language mechanics: memory management, multithreading, and how the language’s lower-level behavior affects design choices. Several candidates mention a timed practical exercise, sometimes around 30 minutes, where you’re given a partially built program and asked to complete it so it actually runs and performs acceptably; a solution that compiles but runs too slowly does not fully satisfy the exercise, and there isn’t always a second attempt once time is up. A hiring-manager or team conversation typically closes the loop, and behavioral questions about ownership and working under time pressure show up there, which is worth prepping the same way you would for any behavioral interview using specific, concrete examples rather than generic answers. Reported difficulty on Glassdoor sits in the middle of the pack for trading firms, and candidate satisfaction with the process is mixed, so go in prepared for a loop that can feel terse and fast-moving compared to a typical big-tech process.
Because GTS spans market making, DMM operations, and a research side, the exact loop can vary by team. A role tied more directly to trading systems will lean harder on C++ and networking; a role adjacent to research or data infrastructure may bring in more statistics and data-processing questions. If you’re new to the space generally, the site’s quant finance guides are a reasonable place to build background on how market makers and exchanges interact before you get into GTS-specific prep.
What they actually ask
- C++ fundamentals: memory management, object lifetime, the difference between stack and heap allocation, and how you’d reason about performance-critical code paths.
- Multithreading and concurrency: race conditions, lock-based versus lock-free approaches, and why a real-time system might choose one over the other.
- Low-level networking: how CPU caching affects throughput, and questions about UDP versus TCP tradeoffs for market data delivery.
- A practical coding exercise: extend or fix a given program (candidates have described tasks like an order-execution algorithm, or importing a spreadsheet of trades and computing summary metrics) where correctness and runtime performance are both graded.
- Data structures and algorithms: standard coding-interview material, delivered as a distinct round separate from the C++-specific and practical rounds.
- Market structure and mechanics: how a market maker quotes, what a Designated Market Maker’s obligations look like around openings, closings, and halts, and general familiarity with order types.
- Probability and mental math: quick estimation and basic probability reasoning, consistent with what’s common across market-making interviews generally.
- System-design-adjacent questions about building software that supports and monitors trading activity in real time, given that several GTS postings mention exactly this kind of work.
Levels and comp (2026)
GTS does not publish a public leveling ladder, and independent salary aggregators like levels.fyi currently show limited verified submissions for the firm, which is common for privately held trading firms that don’t disclose compensation structure. Titles you’ll see in job postings include Software Engineer, Senior Software Engineer, and Junior C++ Developer, but there isn’t a consistent public band structure the way there is at a large public tech company. Rather than rely on any single secondhand number, check current listings on levels.fyi and Glassdoor close to when you interview, since trading-firm comp shifts year to year with performance and headcount plans, and cross-reference a few sources rather than anchoring on one data point.
As a general pattern across electronic market makers, total compensation for engineers tends to weight a base salary plus a meaningful bonus tied to firm and individual performance, with the bonus component doing more of the work at senior levels. Treat any specific figure you see online as a rough signal rather than a guarantee, and ask directly during the process about how comp is structured at GTS specifically.
Prep priorities
Spend real time on C++ specifics rather than treating it as interchangeable with any other language. Know how memory is laid out and allocated, how virtual functions and inheritance affect performance, what makes code cache-friendly, and how to reason about a multithreaded program without introducing races. Given how often candidates mention a timed practical exercise, practice writing code under a clock in an environment where you can actually compile and run it, not just talk through pseudocode.
Build real familiarity with market microstructure, and specifically with how a Designated Market Maker’s job differs from a typical proprietary trading desk: the opening and closing auction process, how a stock reopens after a trading halt, and why quoting obligations exist in the first place. You don’t need to be a trader to answer these questions well, but you should be able to explain the mechanics in plain language, since GTS’s DMM business is the part of the firm that makes it distinct from other electronic market makers.
Round out your prep with standard data-structures-and-algorithms practice and basic probability and mental-math drills, since both show up as their own distinct rounds separate from the C++-specific material. Networking fundamentals are worth a review too, particularly the tradeoffs between UDP and TCP and why low-latency market data systems lean on one over the other. Finally, prepare a small set of concrete stories about times you owned a problem end to end or worked well under time pressure, since the closing conversation tends to focus there.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GTS the same as GTS International or other companies using the “GTS” name?
No. This guide covers Global Trading Systems, the New York-based electronic market maker and NYSE Designated Market Maker headquartered in New York City and operating under the gtsx.com domain. Several unrelated companies also use “GTS” as a name or abbreviation, so double-check you’re looking at the right one before you apply or research the interview process.
Do I need trading experience to interview at GTS as a software engineer?
No. Engineering roles are hired primarily on software fundamentals, particularly C++, systems programming, and low-latency development. Market structure knowledge helps in conversation and shows genuine interest, but the technical rounds focus on your ability to write and reason about performant code.
What programming languages matter most for GTS engineering interviews?
C++ is the language most consistently mentioned across job postings and candidate interview reports, especially for roles tied to the Trading Systems Development team. Some candidates also report Java-related questions, so it’s worth having a working understanding of memory management and concurrency concepts in whichever language the specific role uses day to day.
How long does the GTS interview process take?
Candidate reports vary, but the process typically runs through a recruiter screen, a data-structures-and-algorithms round, a C/C++ technical round, a timed practical coding exercise, and a closing conversation with the hiring team. Plan for several weeks from first contact to a decision, though exact timing depends on the role and how quickly the team wants to fill it.
What makes the GTS interview different from other market-making firms?
The biggest difference is the NYSE Designated Market Maker business, which doesn’t exist at most other electronic market makers. That means GTS engineers sometimes work on systems tied directly to exchange obligations like opening and closing auctions and halt reopenings, so it’s worth understanding that mechanic specifically rather than only general market-making concepts.
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