Everybody started as a retail trader. I would look at what's available in your market and what they are looking for. What part of the world are you in?
So a lot would depend on the automation of the shop. Most big shops will have specific asset class desk. Particularly difficult to get hired as an assistant to PM, but lot's of folks enter as a desk person - trading for the PMs. Anywhere near Foster City? There is a gem of a firm there called Balliard and the trading desk used to have a fair amount of turnover - plus almost nobody knows them. So trader, assistant trader, convert trader, especially in FO community a lot would depend on your experience, but FO is huge in the Bay Area. Analyst jobs are also a great place to start again depending on the shop. Our shop just hired a young man who worked at Costco to analyze simple financials. Night desks are also big in the Bay Area as there is a lot of business done in the Asian time zones and nobody wants to work nights. Schwab asset used to be big, but it's mostly going to Texas. The devil is in the details and a lot will depend, obviously, on the openings in the shops - your education and probably less so on your trading performance unless you can show years of it and describe your analysis a methodology. Wells and B of A have mostly moved their trading ops to NYC. Bank of The West still runs(as of a couple years ago)equity desks out of SF and Portland. Work the Bloomberg - your part of the country used to be the biggest index and futures shops and a lot of those folks are now independent operations - often with wealthy backers. Pretty simple structure, but the SF area had a ton. Smaller shops - IMHO - are the best - larger operations are recruiting at Stanford and Berkeley. Converts and structured notes are big in the insurance community - so I would spend some time learning those. They have very little appetite for equities for regulatory reasons.
Its a legal scam. They are selling you leverage and act like a shitty broker. Something other brokers get you for some interest rate essentially almost for free. Every brokerage on earth is your enemy, IB ist the only one fighting against selling order flow and HFTs. always remember.
I would say their are prop firms that usually require a deposit and are just looking to churn traders and make money off you from fees and commissions. They don’t care if you are a good or bad traders they will take anyone as long as you can pay a deposit. Then their is prop firms that are only looking for good traders and you must have a good track record to get hired. They are much harder to get into. They are more want to grow you as a trader and see how good you can be.
As other people have said these places are a weird place between super shady legal trading scheme and outright scam. https://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Maverick-Trading-EI_IE699805.11,27.htm Here's their glassdoor. It should be enlightening. In particular: Pretty deceptive and scammy. Sort of like the Online Trading Academy. They bait you in with typical slimy sales tactics and then drop the cost on you. Additionally, I've seen these people advertise on the local craigslist as a "work from home and generate wealth" strategy. That should send up alarm bells everywhere. Good prop traders don't browse craigslist and monster for trading jobs. Any time it sounds too good - it almost certainly is. Consider the following: would any legitimate business just hand a new prop trader money? My experience is no. What I've seen of the industry is you put up your capital (20,000 or whatever), the prop firm will match you (that is, provide leverage), and your money is first loss. This type of firm isn't scammy because as a prop trader you work for yourself. You are more or less renting your desk with your capital.
FO is a Family office - MFO is a Multi-Family Office - tons in your area. They are where much of the HF money is moving too. A better model for some.