APPLICATION PROCESS

OVERVIEW
Hi!

Thanks for your interest in IMC! We are excited to learn more about you and show you
everything IMC has to offer.

To best prepare you for what’s ahead and make sure you know what to expect, we have
prepared this document for you. Here is an overview of our application process for the
position of Python Software Engineer:

The first step in our application process is a Python coding assignment. The assignment
involves programming another simple game. Once you receive the requirements you will
have three days to complete it. On average candidates take about 5 hours to create
their solution, but you can spend as much time on it as you like on it with the three days.
We would like candidates to provide a solution as if it were for a production system. The
solution needs to meet the requirements with simple, understandable and extensible code.
Testing is important to us.

In this 60-minute interview you will be speaking with two of our Senior Python Engineers
and the conversation will cover:

• To a large extent it will be technical. We would like to hear about your experience,
the technical challenges you have faced and the choices you made. You might be
challenged on some parts of your solution to the home assignment. You can also
expect some Python related technical questions.
• We would also like to hear about your experience on a more functional level: how did
you work, what was your specific contribution, with whom and how did you interact, in
which areas were you perhaps pro-active? etc.
• Your motivation may be discussed: what drives you, what do you enjoy, what do you
dislike, what is important to you in your work.
 FINAL ROUND DAY(S)
The Final round consists of a number of consecutive interviews. We can either schedule
them on a single day or spread the interviews over two consecutive days. Since the final
round can be quite intensive, most candidates prefer the latter option. During the final
round, you will take part in four interview ‘stations’:

INTRODUCTION TO IMC
During this first 30-minute interview our Technology Lead will give you an
introduction into IMC. He would of course also like to get to know you!

PROBLEM-SOLVING AND CODING STATION (2.5 HOURS)

In this two-hour problem-solving and coding station we will be observing what steps
you take to complete a problem which simulates a real-world task that an employee
at IMC may need to solve. We are interested in seeing how you clarify the problem
and your thought process and

the reasoning behind any decisions that you make in order to solve it. You are not
expected to know the answer right away nor necessarily solve the problem during
the time provided.

You should be familiar with the following data structures’ usage and performance:
Dynamic Array, Linked List, Hash Table, Binary Heap, and Binary Search Tree; please
take time to brush up on them as it will help you get through the technical interview
with more success. We do not expect you to be an expert on these data structures
(i.e. implement one from scratch) but they should be a major part of your dialogue
with the interviewers and problem-solving tool box.
You will be using Python and the PyCharm IDE to create the solution. We are not
evaluating how well you know this language at this stage, but rather how well you
can apply the concepts you’ve discussed to code a solution. Basic familiarity with
I PyCharm will give you more time to focus on solving the problem. If you are not
familiar with PyCharm and you have the time, you can download PyCharm for free
and try it out at: https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/

TECHNICAL INTERVIEW
Two of our technical leads will perform this interview, where we’ll go through your
technical experience in detail. You can expect there will also be some more abstract
questions surrounding technology you’ve worked with in the past and we want to
know about results you managed to achieve in projects and describe those in more
detail. The interview will also provide you the opportunity to ask more questions
about IMC’s technology landscape and how technology and trading teams work
together to solve complex problems.
 BEHAVIORAL INTERVIEW
At IMC we believe in fostering our unique culture; and therefore, we want to be sure
that all new employees will thrive in this environment. You can expect for us to ask
you for some examples of situations where you demonstrated certain behaviors;
and together we will then dive deeper into your examples. We normally also take
some time to reflect on your IMC interview experience and learnings. This 60-minute
meeting will also give you the opportunity to ask further questions about our culture
and employee (and relocation) benefits.

INTERVIEW SCHEDULING AND LOCATION

All interviews are generally scheduled remotely, as it can be difficult to find time to meet
us at our office. Of course, we would very much like to give you an opportunity to see
where you will be working if you decide to join IMC. Depending on where you live and your
schedule, we can either arrange for one of the later interview stations to take place at our
office or simply set up a separate meeting for you to see our office and maybe even have
lunch with a few of your future colleagues.
INTRO DECK
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
What we do as IMC 3
Our role as a Market Maker 3
Our company culture 4
Technology at IMC 5
Our working methodology 6
A typical day as engineer at IMC 7
Career growth and mobility 8
Our training opportunities 9
Hybrid working policy 10
Remote working possibilities 10
How we will help you relocate 11
Secondary benefits 12
WHAT WE DO AS IMC
We are a proprietary trading firm whose main activity is market
making. As a proprietary trading firm we trade using our own capital,
rather than trading on behalf of clients. Most of our trading occurs
on public exchanges, but we also participate in direct trades with
counterparties like banks and other trading firms.

OUR ROLE AS A MARKET MAKER

As a market maker, we stand ready to buy or sell financial products at
any time, facilitating the transfer of risk for market participants. Our
automated systems and trading strategies ensure tighter ‘spreads’
between bid and ask prices, reducing transaction costs for buyers and
sellers. In other words, we make it possible for others to buy and sell
financial products, faster and at better prices. If you’re interested in
learning more about this, we’ve created a quick introduction video:
https://www.youtube.com/

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OUR COMPANY CULTURE
Whether it’s our office in Amsterdam, Chicago, Sydney or Mumbai,
we pride ourselves on our common IMC culture. We believe that hiring
talented people and giving them lots of responsibility leads to amazing
results. This means giving lots of ownership and autonomy to individuals
and teams and maintaining a flat hierarchy where even the most junior
members can share their ideas and be heard. At IMC the best idea
always wins.

Creating an environment where everyone can share ideas is just the

start: it’s also about making things happen today and making them
better tomorrow. That’s why we foster teamwork and innovation. A
good idea will go from concept to code in less than 24 hours and we
continuously plan for the future, anticipate change and innovate. We
know that even the best idea today may need re-thinking tomorrow.

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 TECHNOLOGY AT IMC
Technology within IMC can roughly be
divided in three layers:

INFRASTRUCTURE EXECUTION DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT

IMC’s infrastructure aims to support our IMC’s C++ Execution development teams IMC’s Java and Python teams work on
trading activities globally and is fully managed work on a unified codebase consisting of over a wide variety of applications, tools and
by ourselves. It consists of some of the most 18 million lines of code. The software they functionalities used by our traders. This layer
cutting-edge technologies spread across a develop sits directly in the latency-critical loop of our tech stack holds most of the business
global network of facilities from datacenters of our technology stack and touches almost logic, which includes trading algorithm
to co-locations - data centers set up in close every part of our organization. From ensuring implementations, option pricing, calculating
proximity to trading venues and exchanges our connectivity to the market and handling volatility, simulation frameworks, market risk
to ensure the lowest possible latencies. We massive amounts of data, to implementing applications, trade reconciliation applications
strongly believe in open-source technology complex trading algorithms and integrating and data analysis & visualisation tools. We
and use a wide range of proprietary tooling advanced hardware solutions developed by our don’t just develop the business applications
to make sure we have complete control over hardware engineering team. In short, this is themselves, but also the tools that keep our
our linux-based infrastructure. Much of our where the automated trading takes place and development process at the cutting edge.
infrastructure is cloud native: we rely heavily where we measure performance in nano- or
on Kubernetes to provide a robust internal even pico-seconds.
cloud environment, and take advantage
of dynamic cloud-bursting capabilities to
leverage public cloud resources when required. 5
OUR WORKING METHODOLOGY
As a trading firm, we work in an extremely fast-paced environment
where priorities and objectives can change quickly. Our technology
teams apply a variety of agile principles to ensure we adapt to
constant market changes and create the best possible solutions. We
maintain a 24-hour development cycle, where changes made today
can hit production tomorrow. This is supported by our well set-up
CI/CD pipeline and our rigorous approach to automated testing,
which allow for daily releases and keeping up with changing market
circumstances.

We believe that the best solutions are created in an environment

without walls or silos. Our engineers interact directly with traders,
creating mutual understanding, increasing efficiency, and speeding up
overall communication. Our engineers are empowered to take end-
to-end responsibility for their work. You gather the requirements, you
design the solution, you build it, you test it, you put it in production,
and if it breaks, you fix it. Architecture is a responsibility shared by
every member of the team, giving even the most junior members a
chance to be involved with the most impactful decisions.

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A TYPICAL DAY AS
ENGINEER AT IMC
We usually get to the office between 8:30 and 9:00 am and head
straight to the restaurant for a hearty breakfast and a strong cup of
barista-quality coffee. Then it’s time for the daily stand-up. Progress is
discussed and actions are defined. Once everybody’s caught up on what
the rest of the team is doing, it’s time to get your hands dirty.

The rest of the morning is all about getting stuff done. Together with Around noon, we all head over to the restaurant for a full three-course
traders and others software engineers, you work on a wide range of meal complete with a number of sandwich options, and even dessert.
challenging and exciting projects. Whether it’s bringing a new trading Then a quick game of pool, foosball, or table-tennis and it’s back to
strategy to production or optimizing part of our core infrastructure, work. The rest of the afternoon is mostly focused on meeting with other
everything you do has an almost immediate impact on our success. Of engineers and traders and discussing new ideas. By regularly checking
course, not every day is equally exciting, but there will always been an on progress and reviewing each other’s work, you gain new insights and
opportunity to learn something new and do something meaningful. find ways of improving our existing systems even further.

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CAREER GROWTH AND MOBILITY
Technology at IMC has a flat structure. We keep direct impact on the businesses’ profitability, vice versa, and team leads who decided to step
hierarchy to a minimum to eliminate obstacles coordinating more complex projects with your back into an individual contributor role when a
and promote individual initiative. That’s why at peers, leading tribes with a common technical particularly interesting project came along. In
IMC, you won’t find the elaborate career ladder focus, and working on products that will be used other words, you decide what your career path
that you may find in other companies. Instead, not just in the local office, but globally across at IMC looks like.
we rely on increasing levels of responsibility and the organization.
reputation amongst peers as a benchmark for
growth. Some engineers will be offered the opportunity
to take on team lead roles as their career
Don’t expect too many fancy job titles within progresses and the organization grows, but
IMC. What we care about is your development: this is by no means the default career path.
as your career progresses at IMC, your scope Organizational mobility is something we value,
of responsibility will grow as you demonstrates putting the best person in the best spot to
the ability and willingness to deliver on larger help us achieve our goals. Career paths vary
impactful projects. You work more closely depending on individual aptitude and interest:
with trading on efforts that have a more we have traders who started as a developer or

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OUR TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES
In your first year you will be enrolled in one to about the financial markets, our position as a on knowledge sharing. This means you will also
of our global traineeships at one of our leading market maker, and everything you need do a lot of on-the-job learning outside of these
international offices, together with new traders to know about our technology to hit the ground more formal settings. Besides learning about
and engineers from all over the world. This running. The real learning however, starts after everything that goes at IMC, we also encourage
in-house developed traineeship will prepare the traineeship. you to stay on top of the ever-changing market
you for your new role and is also a great and technologies. That’s why we encourage you
opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with From technical training and brown-bag to attend conferences and obtain certifications
your international colleagues. Over the course of sessions, to our popular employee-led ‘Trading that relate to your role. Your training budget is
several weeks, you will learn everything you need for Non-Traders’ course – our business is built virtually unlimited.

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HYBRID WORKING REMOTE WORKING
POLICY POSSIBILITIES
To offer our employees flexibility while also Besides our hybrid working policy we offer
making sure they are put in a position to be the flexibility to work remotely for up to four
successful, IMC maintains a hybrid working weeks a year. You are allowed to work from
policy. We offer (almost all of) our engineers anywhere in the world, after you have been
the opportunity to work from home two employed for 6 months. This is especially nice
days a week. After the successful completion for our expat colleagues who otherwise have
of your onboarding period you can take full to use up a lot of vacation days when visiting
advantage of this hybrid working policy. The family abroad.
onboarding period generally lasts between 3
and 6 months.
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HOW WE WILL HELP YOU RELOCATE
Well, first of all, congratulations on the job! Next step – moving to Amsterdam. We
understand that moving to a new country can be overwhelming, so we will be there to
help you every step of the way. From the moment you sign your contract to your first
day at our office, you will be supported by our designated relocation agency. They take
care of the entire visa process and all the tedious formalities like setting up a bank
account or getting your Dutch social security number. And to make sure you can easily
find your footing, we even set you up with an apartment for the first few months of
your new life in Amsterdam.

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SECONDARY BENEFITS

37%
The total compensation we We also offer you a fully For those in need of relocation
offer will reflect your top of the contributed pension plan and IMC offers not only a healthy
market skills and experience. additional benefits like daily relocation budget but also
We allocate 37% of our profits free breakfast and fully catered temporary housing, a broker’s
to our employee bonus scheme, lunch at the office, a health club fee, support in administrative
so that every IMC’er can benefit membership, and our – more processes like setting up a bank
from our shared success. than great - annual company account, and even tax services
trip. for the year of transfer.
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