An interview with Joost de Jong - Northpool

’THE ENERGY TRANSITION IS THE THEME OF OUR GENERATION’

When Joost de Jong came into contact with Northpool, he was still a student. “I met the company at the career days at Delft University in 2019. I visited the event again one year later and Trisha - one of my colleagues now - recognised me. ‘How did your thesis go?’ she said and she remembered the topic I told her about a year before. That made me feel really valued and I decided to try it out at Northpool.”

Many opportunities
Since June 2020 Joost has been working as an energy trader. “I get a huge feeling of opportunity and a bit of restlessness too. The energy market is still developing and although more competitors are entering, I expect volatility to remain high. Especially with the amount of renewables we are placing on the grid.”

From junior to independent trader
After learning the basics of the energy market as a junior, Joost was able to quickly sit in on the shifts and see everything in action. “As a junior trader you will train in our own simulation environment just to get you ready for the real deal. You will start out small just with one or two delivery hours per country. From there on, you expand. Step by step you become more independent until you are able to trade all countries and lead your own shifts. It’s a steep learning curve but I think you can go from junior trader to independent trader within a year.” It can be stressful, Joost explains. “You are involved with money making decisions all the time and you can constantly ask yourself: ‘Could I have seen this move coming, should I have timed the market differently?’. But you have to realize that the most important thing is consistency. You can’t win every hour but if you are consistent you will do better in the long run. Tomorrow is another day, another puzzle, so you can try again.”

Working on the future
As a 24/7 trading company Northpool works in shifts. “We want you to be able to do every type of shift so you will need to see them all regularly. By trading the energy markets we stabilize the grid and are a part of the price formation process. We can literally flow surplus wind power from the UK via underseas cables to a cloudy France where there is less solar generation than expected. It avoids them having to turn off wind turbines and burn extra gas. With more renewable energy to be installed it becomes increasingly challenging to keep the European grid stable and efficient. This energy transition is the theme of our generation and we are just a part of that. That’s why working at a company like this really feels like working on the future.”

We like to share our knowledge and are always looking for talent. So if you have an analytical mind, superb mathematical instincts and you can’t rest until you solve the task: apply! WWW.NORTHPOOL.NL/VACANCIES