What to Expect from an IMC Trading Interview
IMC Trading is one of the original Amsterdam options market makers, founded in 1989 alongside the Dutch derivatives boom that produced Optiver and Flow Traders. The firm sits in the same culture cluster - tightly run, math-heavy, founded by a small group of traders - and has expanded into Chicago, Sydney, Mumbai and Hong Kong. The interview process is closer to a cognitive assessment than a typical engineering interview: every stage tests how well you reason about probability and information under tight time constraints.
This guide covers IMC's process for trader and software developer roles, the question types that come up most, and a four-week preparation plan that maps onto the Quantt coding tests.
IMC Trading at a Glance
- Founded: 1989
- Headquarters: Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Size: ~1,000 employees globally
- Offices: Amsterdam, Chicago, Sydney, Mumbai, Hong Kong
- What they trade: Equity index options, ETF options, fixed income, FX
- Roles they hire: Trader, Quantitative Researcher, Software Engineer, Trading Systems Engineer
- Application route: careers page or via the IMC Trading firm page on Quantt
For broader context, see our Amsterdam quant jobs page and prop trading firms guide.
The Interview Process
Stage 1: Online Assessment
A 60 to 75 minute timed test. For trader candidates, the focus is mental arithmetic (typically 50 to 80 questions including two-digit multiplication and percentages), basic probability and pattern-recognition. For software engineer candidates, two HackerRank-style algorithmic problems in 90 minutes.
Pass rates are around 20 to 25%. Speed is the deciding factor.
Stage 2: Phone or Video Interview
A 45-minute call with an IMC trader or engineer. Trader candidates face probability puzzles, expected-value problems, and a short market-intuition discussion. Engineers face live coding in a shared editor.
Stage 3: Onsite Super Day
For European candidates, a full day in Amsterdam. For US candidates, in Chicago. The day includes four to five back-to-back interviews of 45 minutes each, plus a trading game where you bid and ask on a series of payoffs and your behaviour is observed.
The trading game is famous - candidates report leaving the day exhausted from the constant arithmetic. The game is not about winning; it is about whether you adjust your prices sensibly when new information arrives.
How Interviews Differ by Role
Trader
The most-hired role. Heavy on mental maths, probability, and decision-making in adversarial settings. Expect rapid-fire arithmetic throughout the day - candidates who can multiply two-digit numbers in under three seconds have a structural advantage.
Typical split: 35% mental maths, 30% probability and expected value, 25% market intuition and trading games, 10% behavioural.
Quantitative Researcher
A more academic version of the trader interview. Heavier on statistics, regression, and time-series analysis. Coding in Python is often required.
Software Engineer
A standard FAANG-style technical interview with a low-latency twist. C++ is heavily favoured for the most performance-critical teams; Python and Java appear for the data and platform teams.
Real Question Types
Mental Maths
Question 1: What is 17 * 23?
Approach: (20 - 3) * 23 = 460 - 69 = 391. Or 17 * 23 = 17 * 20 + 17 * 3 = 340 + 51 = 391. The interviewer is timing you - aim for under five seconds.
Probability
Question 2: Optimal stopping You roll a die. You can either accept the value or reroll, but if you reroll you must accept the new value. What is your expected value?
Approach: You should reroll if your first roll is below the expected value of a fresh roll, which is 3.5. So reroll on 1, 2, 3 (probability 0.5) and keep on 4, 5, 6. E = 0.5 * 3.5 + 0.5 * 5 = 4.25.
Question 3: Conditional You have three coins: one always lands heads, one always lands tails, and one is fair. You pick a coin at random and flip it. It lands heads. What is the probability it lands heads on the next flip?
Approach: Bayes. P(2H | 1H) = P(2H and 1H) / P(1H). P(1H) = (1 + 0 + 0.5) / 3 = 0.5. P(2H and 1H) = (1 + 0 + 0.25) / 3 = 0.417. Answer: 0.833.
Trading Game
Question 4: I have an urn with 100 marbles. Some are red, some are blue. You don't know the split. I will give you the number of red marbles in pounds. Make me a market.
Approach: The expected value of the number of red marbles, with no information, is 50. A reasonable starting market is 45 at 55 - bid 45, ask 55. As I trade with you (or refuse), update. If I keep selling at 55, I might know the count is below 55 - tighten and skew lower. The interviewer is testing whether you adjust.
Coding (Engineer)
Question 5: Token bucket rate limiter
Implement a rate limiter that allows N requests per second, with bursts up to B tokens. Each allow() call returns true if the request is within the rate limit, false otherwise.
Approach: Maintain a token count and a last-refill timestamp. On each allow(), refill based on elapsed time, then deduct one token if available. Constant time per call.
How to Prepare - A Four-Week Plan
Week 1: Mental maths. Daily 30-minute drills on Zetamac. Target 50+ correct in two minutes by end of week. This is the single most leveraged thing you can do for an IMC interview.
Week 2: Probability and game theory. Work through A Practical Guide to Quantitative Finance Interviews (Xinfeng Zhou) chapters 1 to 6, plus the brain teaser sections of Heard on the Street.
Week 3: Options theory. Read the first half of Options, Futures and Other Derivatives (Hull). You don't need to derive Black-Scholes - you do need to understand the Greeks intuitively. See our Greeks and volatility in options and option pricing models explained.
Week 4: Mock trading games. Practise market-making games with a study partner. Have them give you simple payoff structures (the sum of two dice, the number of red marbles in an urn) and quote two-way prices in real time. This is the single most differentiating prep activity for IMC.
What IMC Looks For Beyond Technical Skill
IMC's culture is famously direct. Interviewers will challenge correct answers to test how you respond, give deliberately ambiguous questions to test how you ask for clarification, and watch for whether you adjust your prices in the trading game when new information arrives.
The two traits that matter most: calibration (knowing what you do not know) and adjustability (changing your mind when shown new evidence). Candidates who anchor on a price or an answer and refuse to update do badly, regardless of how clever the original answer was.
For broader context on the skills firms across the industry value, see our quantitative analyst career guide.
Compensation & recruiting notes
Pay ranges in this guide are illustrative estimates from publicly discussed bands and anecdotal reports - not official figures from the employer. Packages vary widely by desk, office, performance, and year. Hiring processes change; nothing here guarantees an interview, assessment format, or offer.
Frequently Asked Questions
How hard is it to get an IMC Trading interview?
Competitive but not the hardest in the industry. IMC hires roughly 50 to 80 graduate traders per year globally. Campus recruiting is heavy at TU Delft, Erasmus, Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial in Europe, and at Chicago-area universities for the US offices.
Does IMC hire from non-target universities?
Yes, particularly via the OA. IMC's online assessment is widely regarded as meritocratic - candidates who score very highly often progress to interviews regardless of school, but thresholds and policies vary over time and are not guaranteed.
What programming languages should I know for an IMC interview?
For trader roles, none required for the interview itself, though basic Python helps once you join. For software engineer roles, C++ is heavily favoured for hot-path systems; Python and Java for data and platform work.
How does IMC's compensation compare to Optiver and Flow Traders?
The three Amsterdam options firms are broadly comparable on compensation. Graduate traders typically receive €120,000 to €180,000 in Amsterdam, $180,000 to $250,000 in Chicago. Senior traders and partners earn into seven figures. See our quantitative analyst salary guide.
How many interview rounds does IMC have?
OA, one phone screen, and an onsite Super Day with four to five interviews plus a trading game. Total time from application to offer is typically 4 to 6 weeks.
What is the difference between IMC and Optiver?
Both are Amsterdam options market makers with similar culture and compensation. Optiver is larger and more famous outside Europe. IMC is slightly more diversified across asset classes (more fixed income and FX exposure). Culturally IMC is often described as marginally more research-driven; Optiver as marginally more trader-driven. We have a dedicated Optiver interview guide.
Can I reapply if rejected?
Yes, after 12 months. IMC takes repeat candidates seriously, particularly those who can show measurable improvement in mental maths speed.
Practise the questions IMC Trading Interview: Process, Questions and How to Pass 2026 actually asks
Reading about the interview is one thing - sitting one is another. Quantt's interactive coding tests are modelled on the same problem types that show up in firms like Jane Street, Citadel, Hudson River and Optiver. Run real Python in the browser, get instant feedback, and benchmark yourself against the bar.
Free to start - no credit card required