Quantitative Trading Strategist - Equity Options

IMC Trading; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 225,000 - 275,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary bonus

Paid leave

Insurance benefits

Job summary

A global trading firm is seeking experienced quantitative professionals for their US Equity Options market-making business in Chicago. This role focuses on improving automated trading decisions and involves developing quantitative models that enhance pricing and execution performance. Ideal candidates will have over 3 years of experience in quantitative research, strong programming skills in Python, and a background in market microstructure. Competitive compensation is offered along with comprehensive benefits.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in quantitative research, systematic trading, or market microstructure roles.
• Experience with exchange-traded products, ideally equity options.
• Strong understanding of market structure and trading system behavior.

Responsibilities

• Develop and refine quantitative models for pricing, execution, and risk management.
• Analyze large-scale trading datasets for structural improvements.
• Design, test, and deploy strategy enhancements into production systems.

Skills

Quantitative research

Systematic trading

Programming (Python)

Market microstructure

Statistical analysis

Tools

Python

C++

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 for more comprehensive information.

Salary

$250,000

About Us

IMC is a global trading firm powered by a cutting‑edge research environment and a world‑class technology backbone. Since 1989, we’ve been a stabilizing force in financial markets, providing essential liquidity upon which market participants depend. Across our offices in the US, Europe, Asia Pacific, and India, our talented quant researchers, engineers, traders, and business operations professionals are united by our uniquely collaborative, high‑performance culture, and our commitment to giving back. From entering dynamic new markets to embracing disruptive technologies, and from developing an innovative research environment to diversifying our trading strategies, we dare to continuously innovate and collaborate to succeed.