Qube Research & Technologies (QRT) is a systematic investment manager headquartered in London, spun out of Credit Suisse's quantitative trading unit in 2017, with offices including Paris, Zurich, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Mumbai. It has grown into one of the largest quant funds in Europe and hires aggressively across quantitative research, quantitative development, and core technology — which means a lot of candidates hit its online assessment every recruiting cycle. This page covers the OA specifically; for the later live rounds, see our Qube Research & Technologies interview questions guide.
One caveat up front: QRT runs different pipelines for different roles and offices, and candidate reports vary more than at a firm like Optiver with one famous standardized test. Everything below is drawn from what candidates consistently describe on Glassdoor, Wall Street Oasis, Blind, LeetCode Discuss as of mid-2026 — treat it as the commonly reported shape, not a guarantee of what your invite will contain.
Where the OA sits in the process
Candidates typically describe a five-to-six-stage funnel, with everything before the final round conducted remotely:
| Stage | Format | What it tests |
|---|---|---|
| Recruiter screen | Phone call | Background, motivation, visa/location logistics |
| Online assessment | Codility or HackerRank, timed | Coding; math/stats or data-handling depending on role |
| Technical interviews (2–3) | Video, live coding | Algorithms, C++/Python, CV deep-dives |
| Math / problem-solving round | Video | Probability, statistics, brainteasers (QR track) |
| Final round | Often onsite | Behavioral, team fit, senior sign-off |
Glassdoor data puts the average time-to-hire around three to four weeks depending on role. If you're new to how these screens work in general, our quant online assessment explainer covers the mechanics (proctoring, timing, scoring) that apply here too.
The reported OA format by role
QRT uses both Codility and HackerRank depending on the team, and the difficulty spread in reports is wide:
- Quantitative developer / technologist: the lighter version is one or two LeetCode easy-to-medium coding problems. The heavier version — reported by several candidates, particularly for experienced and India-based technologist roles — is a long test (candidates describe 2.5–3 hours) mixing hard algorithmic problems with multiple-choice questions on coding concepts, with difficulty ramping up as you go.
- Data/platform-adjacent roles: some candidates report a HackerRank built around pandas — aggregation and data-manipulation tasks plus one LeetCode-style problem. If your target team touches research infrastructure, don't skip pandas fluency.
- Quantitative researcher: reports emphasize probability and statistics questions at an easy-to-medium level, plus applied ML concepts — candidates specifically mention being asked about random forests, gradient boosting (XGBoost), and OLS regression in the screening stages.
The variance is the real trap. Because you may get anything from two easy problems to a three-hour grind, the rational prep strategy is to be comfortable at LeetCode-medium speed rather than banking on an easy draw.
What the later stages test
Passing the OA leads to live rounds that candidates describe consistently: a first coding interview that mixes project discussion with algorithmic questions, a second that goes deeper on algorithms and (for C++ roles) advanced language features, and — on the research track — a dedicated math and problem-solving round covering probability, statistics, and estimation. Live-coding sessions reportedly favor clean approaches to realistic toy problems over obscure algorithm tricks. SQL basics come up for developer and data roles. QRT's overall bar sits in the upper-middle of our quant firms ranked by interview difficulty — harder than bank quant loops, somewhat less brutal than the top-tier prop shops.
How to prepare
- Coding under time pressure. Drill mediums until you can finish one in 20–25 minutes with clean code. Our quant coding question bank is organized around exactly this OA-style format.
- Probability and statistics. For the QR track, the reported level is standard quant-interview material: expectations, conditional probability, distributions, hypothesis testing. Work through the probability bank and statistics bank; candidates who interviewed at QRT also recommend classic sources, which we've mapped in our Fifty Challenging Problems in Probability guide.
- ML fundamentals, not ML trivia. Be ready to explain bias-variance, why boosting differs from bagging, and when OLS breaks. Our machine learning question bank covers the tree-ensemble and regression questions reports mention.
- Pandas and SQL. An hour of groupby/merge/pivot practice is cheap insurance given the data-flavored OA reports.
Ready to practice? Start with timed sets from the QuantVault problem bank, then hit the probability questions and coding questions that map most directly to the reported QRT screens.
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Frequently asked questions
What platform does Qube Research & Technologies use for its online assessment?
Candidate reports mention both Codility and HackerRank, varying by role and team. Developer and technologist candidates most often describe Codility screens or long HackerRank tests, while some data-adjacent roles report pandas-based HackerRank questions.
How hard is the Qube RT online assessment?
Reports range widely: some candidates describe one or two LeetCode easy-to-medium problems, while others report 2.5 to 3 hours of hard algorithmic questions mixed with multiple-choice concept questions. Because you cannot predict which version you will get, preparing to solve LeetCode mediums quickly is the safest strategy.
Does the Qube Research online assessment include math questions?
For quantitative researcher roles, candidates report probability and statistics questions at an easy-to-medium level alongside applied machine learning concepts such as random forests, XGBoost, and OLS. Developer-track assessments are reported to be coding-focused, with math appearing later in the live problem-solving round.
What comes after the QRT online assessment?
Candidates commonly describe two coding interviews, a math and problem-solving round for research roles, and a final behavioral round that is often onsite. Glassdoor data suggests the full process takes roughly three to four weeks on average.
Practice the real thing
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