India’s top engineering schools have become the favoured hunting grounds for talent.
Half a dozen global trading giants, from Citadel Securities and IMC Trading to Millennium and Optiver, are ratcheting up their presence in India’s booming derivatives markets, fuelling a hiring spree and pushing exchanges to improve technology.
The firms’ hiring plans, being reported for the first time, come amid expectations that large domestic consumer and investor bases will help shield India from global turmoil sparked by the trade policies of US President Donald Trump.
The South Asian nation made up nearly 60% of global equity derivative trading volumes of 7.3 billion in April, the Futures Industry Association says, while its regulators say notional turnover of the contracts has grown 48 times since March 2018.
For Western firms, the gold rush is too big to ignore, particularly after US trading firm Jane Street earned $2.34 billion from its India trading strategy last year, some of the firms’ executives said.
We have seen competition increasing both on the trading front, where you see more players going for the same opportunities, and on the job market as well,” said Jocelyn Dentand of global high-speed trader IMC Trading.
The firm plans to grow its team by more than 50% by the end of 2026 to stand at more than 150, added Dentand, the managing director of its India unit.
Foreign investors turned buyers of Indian stocks in April and May, purchasing a net $2.8 billion, as they abandoned their previous selling stance from October 2024 to March 2025, prompted by high valuations and slower growth in earnings.
US-based Citadel Securities, a market-making firm founded by well-known investor Kenneth Griffin, runs a leaner team of around 10 in India but has ramped up capital allocation to its operations, said a source familiar with its plans.
“In India, we’re constantly looking for talent and constantly hiring,” said the source, who sought anonymity in the absence of authorisation to speak to the media and declined to give details of the plan.
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