Quant jobs / Keyrock

DeFi Quant Research Intern – Digital Assets Market Making

A six-month research internship on the strategic proprietary market making desk, focused on on-chain (DeFi) markets. You would work with researchers, traders and engineers to study how blockchain mechanics shape liquidity, execution and strategy performance.

What you’d work on

Our reading of the posting: what a new hire in this role would most likely spend their first months on.

Analyse on-chain liquidity and price formation on AMMs and other decentralised venues
Backtest and simulate DeFi trading ideas, including the cost of gas, slippage and transaction ordering
Build reusable Python tools and data pipelines for research and monitoring
Compare centralised and decentralised prices to inform hedging and pricing
Do post-trade analysis on live strategies and explain unexpected PnL

What they ask for

Required

Python for data analysis
SQL, Git and command-line workflows
Working knowledge of blockchain transactions, gas and finality
AMMs, concentrated liquidity, oracles and liquidations
MEV awareness (arbitrage, backrunning, sandwiching)
Probability and quantitative reasoning
Clear written and spoken English

Preferred

Querying chain data via RPCs, indexers or subgraphs
Reading Solidity and event logs
Rust or another systems language
Non-EVM chains or Layer 2 execution models
A personal on-chain or DeFi project

Education: Current or recent degree in maths, computer science, engineering, physics, quantitative finance or a related field
Experience: Students or recent graduates, ideally with hands-on DeFi projects
Languages and tools: Python
SQL
Git
Solidity
Rust
Markets: crypto

How to prepare

Build an AMM simulator (constant product and concentrated liquidity) and measure impermanent loss and slippage
Pull on-chain swap data from an indexer or subgraph and study price impact and arbitrage gaps against a centralised venue
Read about MEV, block construction and transaction ordering, then model how it erodes a simple arbitrage edge
Write a backtest that charges gas, fees and latency, and test whether an apparent edge survives them

What to study

The Quantitative Researcher roadmap sets out the stages for this kind of role, with free resources for each.

Open the roadmap

Apply

Read the full posting on Keyrock’s site before applying: requirements, location and pay can change after we check them.

View the posting on Keyrock’s site ↗

SelfMadeQuant wrote this summary from the employer’s public posting, last checked 6 November 2026. SelfMadeQuant isn’t affiliated with Keyrock and doesn’t handle applications.