Quantitative Trading Strategist - Equity Options

IMC Trading; Illinois; On-site; USD 230,000 - 270,000; Full time

Job summary

IMC Trading seeks experienced quantitative professionals to join its US Equity Options market-making team. You will work at the intersection of quantitative research, execution, and risk management to improve pricing quality, execution performance, and system robustness in live markets.

Collaborate with traders, researchers, and engineers to design, test, and deploy production strategy enhancements, analyzing large data sets to identify improvements and drive end-to-end performance gains across

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in quantitative research or market microstructure roles.
• Strong programming skills in Python; C++ experience preferred.
• Experience with exchange-traded products, ideally equity options.

Responsibilities

• Develop and refine quantitative models for pricing, execution, and risk management.
• Analyze large market and trading datasets to identify structural improvements.
• Design, test, and deploy strategy enhancements into production systems.
• Collaborate with traders, researchers, and engineers on live trading logic.
• Contribute to scalable solutions affecting a broad universe of equity options.
• Lead research from idea through backtesting, implementation, and monitoring.

Skills

Python

C++

Quant research

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 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.