Zhivko Zhechev

Bulgarian mathematician and quantitative trader. Represented Bulgaria at the International Mathematical Olympiad in 2009, 2010 and 2011 (Silver 2009; Bronze 2010 and 2011), and studied mathematics at Stanford University (2012-2016), where he was an Honorable Mention in the Putnam Competition in 2013, 2014 and 2015 and part of Stanford's seventh-place team in 2014. Software engineering internships at Google (2014) and Facebook (2015) preceded a quantitative trading role at Tower Research Capital (2016-2023). Identity and employment are sourced from a structured LinkedIn/index record and mathematics-competition records; no independent page explicitly links the index record to the Olympiad identity.

Notes5

• Quant employment verification: CONFIRMED. Source-backed evidence: an imported LinkedIn/index record for https://linkedin.com/in/zhivko-zhechev-674559105 lists 'Quantitative Trader, Tower Research Capital, New York, 2016-2023 (7 yrs)' as an actual employment role (company_domain tower-research.com), preceded by SWE internships at Google (2014) and Facebook (2015) and Stanford University 2012-2016. Employer classification: Tower Research Capital is an established New York automated/high-frequency trading firm founded 1998, i.e. a genuine systematic/algorithmic trading employer, not merely a company whose name contains 'quant'. Identity support: the index record matches the target name and Stanford trajectory; no found page independently links the index record to the IMO contestant, so identity is supported by name plus trajectory alignment rather than a direct cross-link. Role type is a substantive trading role (7 years), not a student program or offer.Sep 17, 2026
• Identity caution: the Tower Research Capital / Stanford LinkedIn record (zhivko-zhechev-674559105, Jersey City NJ) matches the Olympiad name and Stanford trajectory but no page we found explicitly links the two records, so the employment link is supported by a structured index plus circumstantial alignment, not by an independent primary source naming both.Sep 17, 2026
• Tower Research Capital is a New York-based automated (high-frequency) trading firm founded 1998, trading all asset classes on its own technology platform, which classifies the employer as a genuine systematic/algorithmic trading firm rather than a name-only 'quant' business.Aug 4, 2026
• The Tower Research Capital role (2016-2023, Quantitative Trader) followed directly from a 2016 Stanford graduation, giving a seven-year single-firm quant trading tenure covering the full post-graduation period in the imported index.Jun 2016
• Represented Bulgaria at the International Mathematical Olympiad three times, winning Silver in 2009 (rank 83, 28 pts) and Bronze in 2010 (rank 226, 15 pts) and 2011 (rank 186, 19 pts).2011
• Compiled for Stanford at the 2014 Putnam Competition: Stanford's team of Gyujin Oh, Albert Zhang and Zhivko Zhechev finished seventh; he also took Honorable Mention in 2013, 2014 and 2015, a four-year competitive-mathematics presence at Stanford.Apr 6, 2015
• Google and Facebook software-engineering internships (2014 and 2015) sit between his Stanford studies and a move into quantitative trading, so his software background predates the trading role rather than being learned on it.2016
• No independent web footprint (personal site, GitHub, X, interviews, talks) tied to this individual surfaced in searches; the public record for this identity is essentially the LinkedIn/index entry plus the mathematics and Putnam records, so many schema fields remain empty rather than filled from namesakes.Sep 17, 2026
• An anonymous co-authored CS229 machine-learning project with Jimmy Du and Rolland He (Autumn 2014) predates the trading career and points to an applied ML/AI elective alongside pure mathematics.Dec 2014