| | Introduction
IMC financial markets started on the floor in Amsterdam 1989, as a market maker in Dutch single stock options. When European exchanges started to transform into electronic market places, IMC financial markets was one of the first to start electronic trading. In the last 20 years we’ve expanded our product range to Equity index derivatives, Fixed Income, Commodities and much more. We have also changed from pure options market making to a hedge-fund style proprietary trading firm, engaging in all kinds of arbitrage around the world. We specialize in electronic trading of listed cash and derivatives markets, combined with trading over the phone. IMC and her subsidiaries consist of 650 employees globally. IMC financial markets has offices in Amsterdam, Zug, Chicago, Sydney and Hong Kong.
Our Culture
IMC financial markets is a non-hierarchical, dynamic and young organization where innovation and entrepreneurship are of paramount importance. Our flat organisational structure translates into a fast-paced business culture empowering our employees to develop and implement new ideas both individually and as a team. We are committed to building our team for the future by recruiting highly talented people with a passion for the financial markets.
 | | Technology at IMC
Giving us the edge
Modern financial markets are at the very leading edge of information technology today. Over the last two decades, trading has gone almost 100% electronic and trade volumes have increased dramatically. IMC has been at the cutting edge of this transition, and we were one of the earliest adopters of trading technology. Today it is a critical and intrinsic source of competitive edge for us. This edge comes from keeping our technical people in very close proximity to our traders: putting the best technology available to work and collaborating with each other on innovative ways of using and improving it. IMC’s technology team is large and diverse. It has more than 150 people globally, and it is growing quickly. We recruit deep specialists but from time to time also new graduates in each of our three key groups:
 | Trading Solutions |
The Trading Solutions team designs and builds trading systems and exchange connectivity infrastructure. This team of infrastructure professionals maintains IMC’s trading infrastructure as the best in the world, providing connectivity to over 35 exchanges from many physical locations around the world. They keep up with the rapidly changing market landscape and work closely with exchanges and our technology partners to ensure we are deploying the latest technology (hardware, networking and trading software) to give our traders an edge.
| Software Development |
Software development at IMC is ubiquitous. We take it very seriously and it is critically important to our success. Some developers work very closely with traders, quants and research analysts to develop tools and automated trading strategies. They develop on top of different trading systems and also extend these with our own custom developments. Other developers are building sophisticated monitoring and control systems to enable traders, risk managers and the Operations & Integration teams to keep an overview on an ever-increasing suite of strategies. Meanwhile, other teams are building management information systems to link trading systems to our core enterprise systems. At IMC, software development is innovative, pragmatic and, yes, ‘fun’, even as complexity and team-size grows. Development takes place in an ‘agile’ environment with short release cycles and very close user involvement.
| Operations / Integration |
The Operations & Integration teams are the front line of the IMC technology team. In a rally team they would be the navigator and the pit crew all at once. Because, while the trader may be ‘driving’, Operations & Integration is responsible for setting up, configuring, tuning, upgrading and monitoring the trading systems. They are involved from the inception of a new strategy, and work next to the trader through the whole lifecycle to advise on system parameters and setup. This involves tweaking strategy and system settings, working with the Development team to make changes and fix problems, and with the Trading Solutions team to tune performance. They will also add infrastructure to scale-up the strategy and connect to new exchanges. | |
