Graviton Research Capital is a proprietary high-frequency trading firm headquartered in Gurugram, India. It trades its own capital across global exchanges and asset classes, and it recruits almost entirely from the top of the IIT placement pool — quantitative researchers, quant developers, and low-latency software engineers. During placement season it consistently sits among the highest-paying day-one offers on Indian campuses; levels.fyi data puts median quantitative researcher compensation in India at roughly ₹87 lakh, with reported packages up to about ₹1.7 crore. Glassdoor reviewers rate the interview difficulty around 3.8 out of 5, which puts it in the harder tier of firms we track on our quant firms by interview difficulty ranking.
The reported interview process
There is no single canonical loop — the process differs by role and by campus vs. off-campus — but candidate reports on Glassdoor, LeetCode Discuss, and IIT placement write-ups describe a consistent shape as of mid-2026:
| Stage | Commonly described format | What it tests |
|---|---|---|
| Online assessment | Quant track: ~3 problems in about an hour, probability and permutations & combinations, unevenly weighted. Dev track: MCQs on DSA/OOP/OS plus 2 hard coding problems (HackerEarth/HackerRank-style) | Raw problem-solving speed under time pressure |
| Technical rounds (2–4) | 60-minute rounds, often on a shared code editor; quant rounds are probability, combinatorics, expectation, and game-theory puzzles; dev rounds mix hard DSA with C++/OS depth | Depth, not breadth — interviewers push follow-ups until you break |
| HR round | Why Graviton, your journey, future plans | Motivation and fit |
Some candidates report two technical rounds, others four; a few software candidates describe a pen-and-paper round where you write only pseudocode and reasoning for three problems of escalating difficulty. Treat the table above as the common core, not a guarantee.
What the quant rounds test
Quant-track candidates consistently report that finance knowledge is not tested. The rounds are built from classic puzzle material, often described as “modified BrainStellar questions” — standard puzzles with a twist so memorized answers fail. The recurring themes:
- Probability and expectation. Expected-value puzzles, random number generator setups where linearity of expectation is the key move. Our probability question bank and expectation problems cover exactly this ground.
- Combinatorics. Counting arguments and permutations & combinations show up in both the OA and the onsite rounds — drill the combinatorics bank until casework is automatic.
- Game theory. Alternating-move games (marble-removal style setups appear in multiple reports) where you must find the winning strategy by backward induction. See our game theory questions.
- Puzzles with follow-ups. Interviewers modify parameters mid-round to check whether you solved it or memorized it. The brain teaser bank is good conditioning for this.
What the developer rounds test
For quant developer and software roles, reports describe a different axis: competitive-programming-grade DSA plus genuine systems depth. Candidates mention hard dynamic programming, segment trees, and problems at the difficult end of contest ratings. Alongside that, interviewers grill C++ specifics — memory management, const semantics — and operating systems topics like paging, sometimes extending into computer architecture. The commonly repeated warning: they check whether you are very good at C++, not whether you know the basics. Our coding interview questions cover the algorithmic side; for OS and low-latency C++ internals, contest archives and an OS textbook are honest supplements — no interview-prep site fully replaces them.
A worked example of the style
A representative (not firm-attributed) puzzle in the reported style: two players alternately remove 1, 2, or 3 marbles from a pile of $n$; the player who takes the last marble wins. Who wins with optimal play? Work backward: positions where $n \equiv 0 \pmod 4$ are losing for the player to move, because any move leaves a non-multiple of 4 and the opponent can always restore it. So the first player wins iff $4 \nmid n$. Graviton-style follow-ups then change the move set or the winning condition — the point is whether your method (find the invariant, prove it by induction) survives the perturbation.
How to prepare
- OA speed first. Three weighted probability/PnC problems in an hour rewards fast, clean setups. Understand what the format is testing — our guide to quant online assessments covers pacing strategy.
- Probability depth second. The onsite rounds go beyond OA level. Work the hard tier of the probability and expectation banks and re-derive every result you use.
- Pick your track honestly. If you are interviewing for the dev role, the marginal hour goes to C++/OS depth, not more puzzles — and vice versa.
- Benchmark against peers. Graviton is frequently compared with Tower Research on Indian campuses; the Tower Research interview questions page shows a similar puzzle-plus-systems profile if you are running both processes.
Ready to drill? Start with the probability interview questions bank, browse the full problem library for combinatorics and game theory sets, and pressure-test your intuition in our trading games before the real rounds.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the Graviton Research Capital online assessment like?
For quant roles, candidates report roughly three problems in about an hour covering probability and permutations and combinations, with uneven mark weighting across questions. For developer roles, reports describe MCQs on data structures, OOP, and operating systems followed by two hard coding problems on platforms like HackerEarth. Formats vary by year and campus, so treat these as the commonly described shape rather than a fixed spec.
Does Graviton ask finance questions in quant interviews?
Candidate reports consistently say no. The quant rounds focus on probability, combinatorics, expectation, and game-theory puzzles, often modified versions of classic BrainStellar-style problems, rather than markets or financial products. Developer rounds instead test hard DSA plus C++ and operating systems depth.
How many interview rounds does Graviton Research Capital have?
Reports vary: after the online assessment, most candidates describe two to four technical rounds of about 60 minutes each, followed by an HR round. Some software candidates also mention a pen-and-paper round where only pseudocode and reasoning are written.
How much does Graviton Research Capital pay quantitative researchers?
Levels.fyi data shows a median total compensation of roughly ₹87 lakh per year for quantitative researchers in India, with reported packages reaching about ₹1.7 crore. On IIT campuses Graviton is regularly cited among the highest-paying placement-season offers, and one placement write-up reported a two-month internship stipend of around ₹16 lakh CTC.
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