--- title: 'Market Structure Strategy Lead at IMC' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/market-structure-strategy-lead-imc-chicago-8ezp9rb5grs5' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-11' --- # Market Structure Strategy Lead at IMC - **Company:** IMC - **Location:** Chicago, IL / New York, NY - **Compensation:** $250k–$300k - **Posted:** 2026-08-07 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-11 - **Apply:** https://job-boards.eu.greenhouse.io/imc/jobs/4936373101 ## Job description We are seeking a dynamic and experienced professional to lead our Market Structure Strategy at IMC US, a cutting-edge quantitative trading firm. The successful candidate will play a pivotal role in deepening relationships with key market participants and enhancing our market presence, while ensuring IMC stays ahead of the structural, technological, and regulatory shifts that shape our trading environment. This role offers a unique opportunity to shape the strategic direction of the firm by influencing market structure evolution and collaborating with internal teams to ensure optimal trading and business outcomes. Your Core Responsibilities: - Market Structure Strategy: Stay at the forefront of market structure changes across asset classes, providing insights into how regulatory, technological, and competitive developments impact the firm's trading operations and business. - Exchange Architecture & Technical Analysis: Maintain a technical understanding of exchange architecture and matching engine mechanics across relevant venues, and work with IMC experts to translate incoming changes—technological, structural, or procedural—into clear assessments of how they will impact IMC's trading operations, systems, and strategy. - Cross-Functional Leadership: Collaborate with trading, technology, legal, and compliance teams to align business initiatives with regulatory requirements and market trends. - Relationship Management: Build and maintain strong relationships with external stakeholders, including exchanges, brokers, clearinghouses, and liquidity providers, to optimize trading conditions and market access. In addition to managing these relationships directly, collaborate with the right internal IMC experts to bring into key conversations, fostering stronger, more technically grounded relationships across the firm. - Competitive Analysis: Conduct ongoing analysis of emerging trends to identify opportunities for competitive differentiation and advantage. - Regulatory Advocacy: Work closely with legal and compliance teams regarding market structure advocacy; engage with regulatory bodies and industry groups to represent the firm's interests in shaping policy developments that impact market structure. - Business Development: Support identification of new business opportunities, including partnerships and expansion into new markets or asset classes, where they intersect with market structure strategy. Your Skills and Experience: - Industry Experience: 8+ years of experience in market structure, exchange technology, or strategy roles within financial services, ideally within a quantitative trading, proprietary trading, or market-making firm. Options market experience is critical. - Market Structure & Technical Knowledge: Deep understanding of market structure across multiple asset classes (e.g., options, equities, futures, fixed income), including exchange architecture, matching engine mechanics, exchange mechanics, liquidity dynamics, and regulatory environments. Ability to quickly assess the technical and operational implications of exchange or infrastructure changes on IMC's business. - Proven Leadership: Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional teams and influence outcomes in complex, fast-paced environments. - Analytical Mindset: Strong analytical and quantitative skills, with the ability to interpret data and market trends to drive decision-making. - Organization & Prioritization: Highly organized, with the ability to manage multiple concurrent workstreams and prioritize based on IMC's top strategic priorities. - Relationship-Building: Proven track record of developing and maintaining strong relationships with key market participants, particularly in options trading. Skilled at knowing when to loop in the right internal subject-matter experts to deepen or extend those relationships. - Regulatory Acumen: Deep understanding of global financial regulations and how they impact market structure, trading, and compliance. - Communication Skills: Excellent communication, negotiation, and presentation skills, with the ability to articulate complex ideas clearly to both internal teams and external stakeholders. The Base Salary range for the role is included below. Base salary is only one component of total compensation; all full-time, permanent positions are eligible for a discretionary bonus and benefits, including paid leave and insurance. Please visit [Benefits - US | IMC Trading](https://www.imc.com/us/careers/benefits) for more comprehensive information. Salary Range $250,000—$300,000 USD ## About Us IMC is a research-driven trading firm where quantitative modeling, machine learning, and engineering shape how modern markets are traded. A stabilizing force in markets since 1989, we provide liquidity across trading venues, delivering the best outcome in value and risk management to investors. Using our own technology and capital, we build proprietary systems and algorithms that operate across global markets. Our researchers, traders, and engineers work as a collective, combining rapid experimentation, advanced infrastructure, and real-time feedback to turn insight into execution and execution into advantage. ## About IMC ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: IMC is a global trading firm that uses cutting-edge technology, quantitative research, and advanced algorithms to provide liquidity across major asset classes and trading venues worldwide. - **Entity Type**: Private (bootstrapped) - **Headquarters**: Amsterdam, Netherlands (global headquarters); major offices in Chicago, Sydney, Mumbai, and other cities. - **Founded**: 1989 - **Founders**: Two traders (names not publicly disclosed) who met on the floor of the Amsterdam Equity Options Exchange. ## Core Business - **Primary industry/industries**: Financial Services, Proprietary Trading, Market Making, Financial Technology - **Target customers**: Institutional clients, exchanges, ETF issuers, buy-side firms, and other market participants. **B2B** focus. - **Mission or purpose statement**: To be the world’s leading trading firm, supporting fair and transparent markets by providing significant liquidity and competitive pricing. [imc.com](https://www.imc.com/eu/who-we-are) ## Products & Services - **ETF Market Making**: Acts as a Lead Market Maker (LMM) in more than 150 US exchange-traded funds (ETFs). - **Options Wholesaling**: A top-3 liquidity provider by volume traded in listed options globally, with connectivity to all OCC venues. - **Institutional Sales**: Provides off-screen trading for buy-side firms. - **Crypto Solutions**: Offers global coverage of crypto products including spot, perps, futures, and options, both on- and off-chain. - **Multi-Asset Class Trading**: Develops innovative technologies and algorithms to trade in all major asset classes on more than 120 venues globally. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available (private company). - **Key Metric**: Over 2,070 employees across 10 global offices as of 2025/2026. [imc.com](https://www.imc.com/eu/who-we-are) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Privately held; no external investors disclosed. Key partners include major global exchanges and clearing houses (e.g., OCC). - **Growth Signals**: - Employee count grew from +1,900 to +2,070 in recent years. - Operates 9,000+ servers across 9 countries and processes petabytes of data daily. - Expanding into crypto and new asset classes. - Committed to being Net Zero by 2040. ## Competitive Advantages - **Technology & Infrastructure**: A world-class technology backbone with 9,000+ servers, petabytes of data processing, and early adoption of AI/ML. - **Longevity & Experience**: 36+ years of trading history and deep expertise across multiple asset classes. - **Global Scale**: 24/7 liquidity provision across 120+ trading venues in the US, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and India. - **Talent Density**: A flat, non-hierarchical culture that attracts top quant researchers, engineers, and traders from 70+ nationalities. - **Culture of Ownership**: Employees are given significant responsibility early on, with a focus on collaboration and cross-functional teamwork. ## Strategic Focus - **Quantitative Research & Tech**: Continually investing in quant research, AI, machine learning, and large-scale computing to generate alpha. - **Global Expansion**: Expanding across new markets and asset classes, including crypto. - **Sustainability**: Committed to being Net Zero by 2040 and making a positive impact through the IMC Foundations, focusing on education. - **Talent Development**: Investing heavily in graduate and intern training programs (Graduate Traineeship, Launchpad) to build the next generation of talent. ## Why Work Here - **Culture & Values**: High-performance, collaborative, and non-hierarchical. 87% of employees say "IMC is a great place to work" (+4% vs global top-10%). [imc.com](https://www.imc.com/us/who-we-are/our-culture-values) - **Work Environment**: Office-based (no remote policy indicated). Offers free catered breakfast and lunch, snacks, drinks, and Friday socials. Regular team events including an annual weekend trip. - **Compensation & Benefits**: Competitive compensation with subsidized gym memberships, ergonomic desks, and health/well-being programs. - **Learning & Development**: Extensive internal and external training programs. Graduates undergo a multi-week Graduate Traineeship (Trading School, Development School, FPGA School). - **Diversity**: Employees represent 70+ nationalities, with a strong commitment to D&I. - **Giving Back**: A share of profits is donated to non-profits, with a focus on education. Employees get volunteer time, donation matching, and grants. ## Sources 1. [IMC Homepage](https://www.imc.com/us/) 2. [IMC Careers Page](https://www.imc.com/us/careers) 3. [IMC Who We Are](https://www.imc.com/eu/who-we-are) 4. [IMC Culture & Values](https://www.imc.com/us/who-we-are/our-culture-values) 5. 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