Lead UX Designer

IMC; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 200,000 - 225,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary bonus

Paid leave

Insurance

Job summary

IMC is seeking a Lead UX Designer to shape how traders interact with our real-time trading tools. You will collaborate with traders, researchers, and engineers to craft fast, intuitive interfaces and scalable design systems that perform under pressure.

You will translate complex requirements into clean, information-dense designs, balancing speed, accuracy, and aesthetic quality across critical workflows while advocating for usability throughout the product lifecycle.

Qualifications

• Experience designing systems that are central to a user’s day.
• Strong portfolio with interaction design and visual craft.
• Experience with complex or technical products in fast-paced environments.
• Ability to design under time pressure.
• Fluency in wireframing and prototyping.
• Able to collaborate with engineers and understand implementation constraints.
• Clear, effective cross-disciplinary communication.
• Pragmatic mindset valuing simplicity, consistency, and quality.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with traders, researchers, and engineers to design interfaces supporting core trading behavior.
• Develop deep understanding of user needs through research and observation.
• Translate complex requirements into intuitive designs.
• Create information-dense, high-reliability interfaces for expert users.
• Balance efficiency with usability and visual quality across workflows.
• Lead evolution of shared design systems and interaction patterns.
• Advocate for user-centered design and usability testing throughout lifecycle.
• Partner with engineering to ensure feasible and well-implemented designs.
• Navigate conflicting feedback and propose thoughtful tradeoffs.
• Help define and drive a UX vision aligned with platform direction.

Job description

At IMC, our trading tools are the environment traders and researchers live in all day. As a Lead UX Designer, you will help define how users understand the market, explore data, and make decisions in real time. This role combines deep workflow design with thoughtful, high quality user experience.

IMC is making a significant reinvestment in its trading platform, rethinking core tools, workflows, and interaction patterns from the ground up. You will be on the ground floor of that effort, with real influence over how the platform evolves and how great UX shows up across the firm.

You will work closely with traders, quantitative researchers, and engineers to design interfaces that are fast, intuitive, and well crafted. The goal is tools that feel natural under pressure, support complex decision making, and are genuinely good to use day after day.

Your Core Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with traders, quantitative researchers, and engineers to design interfaces that support core trading behavior
• Develop a deep understanding of user needs, workflows, and day to day usage through research and observation
• Translate complex requirements into intuitive, coherent, and visually clear designs
• Design information-dense, high-reliability interfaces for expert power users, where speed, accuracy and clarity under pressure are critical
• Balance efficiency with usability and visual quality across critical workflows
• Lead the evolution of shared design systems and interaction patterns
• Advocate for user centered design and usability testing throughout the product lifecycle
• Partner with engineering to ensure designs are feasible, scalable, and well implemented
• Navigate conflicting feedback and propose thoughtful tradeoffs aligned with user and business goals
• Help define and drive a UX vision aligned with the platform’s future direction

Your Skills and Experience:

• Experience designing systems that are the central focus of a user’s entire day to day
• A strong portfolio demonstrating both interaction design and visual craft
• Experience working with complex or technical products in fast paced environments
• Strong intuition for designing tools used under time pressure
• Fluency in wireframing, prototyping, and communicating design intent
• Ability to collaborate deeply with engineers and understand implementation constraints
• Clear and effective communicator across disciplines
• Pragmatic mindset that values simplicity, consistency, and quality

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 for more comprehensive information.

Salary Range

$200,000—$225,000 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.