---
title: 'Quantitative Trading Strategist - Equity Options at IMC'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/quantitative-trading-strategist-equity-options-imc-chicago-tpdsa20hjrxw'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-16'
---

# Quantitative Trading Strategist - Equity Options at IMC

- **Company:** IMC
- **Location:** Chicago, IL
- **Posted:** 2026-02-27
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-16
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.eu.greenhouse.io/imc/jobs/4792587101

## Job description

IMC is seeking experienced quantitative professionals to join our US Equity Options market-making business. We are a leading scaled liquidity provider in US equity options, operating a large-scale systematic trading platform spanning thousands of underlyings. Our platform integrates quantitative research, trading strategy development, and production engineering within a collaborative, non-siloed environment across trading, research, and development teams.

This role focuses on improving how automated trading decisions are designed, evaluated, and deployed in live markets. You will work at the intersection of quantitative research, execution, and risk management to enhance pricing quality, execution performance, and overall system robustness. Improvements influence the broader platform rather than a single seat, providing meaningful ownership and impact from day one. Compensation is competitive and aligned with individual contribution.

Your Core Responsibilities:

- Develop and refine quantitative models that improve pricing, execution, and risk management.
- Analyze large-scale market and trading datasets to identify structural improvements.
- Design, test, and deploy strategy enhancements into production systems.
- Collaborate closely with traders, researchers, and engineers to iterate on live trading logic.
- Contribute to scalable solutions that impact a broad universe of equity options products.
- Drive research from idea generation through backtesting, implementation, and real-time monitoring.

Your Skills and Experience:

- 3+ years of experience in quantitative research, systematic trading, or market microstructure-focused roles.
- Experience working with exchange-traded products, ideally equity options.
- Strong understanding of market structure and trading system behavior.
- Demonstrated ability to conduct rigorous analysis on large, real-world datasets.
- Strong programming skills (Python required; C++ or similar preferred).
- Experience integrating research into production trading systems.
- Background in statistics, probability, time series analysis, or optimization is strongly preferred.

The Base Salary 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

$250,000

## 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. [IMC Recruitment Process](https://www.imc.com/us/careers/recruitment-process)

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