IMC Trading Hiring Process: HackerRank to Working Session

The center of an IMC Trading software engineering interview is a two-and-a-half to three-hour working session. You sit with two senior engineers and work on an approximation of IMC's actual trading system while they watch how you think. IMC's own interviewers say it plainly, and one of them walks through both stages in a hiring Q&A on IMC's site. The HackerRank round at the front of the loop is "purely theoretical," a time-saving filter. The round that matters is a discussion that emulates talking through a problem with an IMC colleague, followed by a programming exercise where, in their words, they don't much care about the end product. They assess how you work.

That reframes the whole preparation. IMC is a low-latency trading firm, so the coding bar is about reasoning under performance constraints, picking things up fast, and weighing alternatives out loud. A memorized optimal solution counts for little. Algorithm grinding gets you past the filter but does nothing for the round that decides the outcome, and almost nobody drills for a collaborative working session. That gap is the biggest lever you have. Practice thinking aloud about trade-offs and performance the way you would in a real engineering discussion, and treat the HackerRank as a hurdle to clear cleanly.

One scope note first. This guide covers IMC's software engineer stream. IMC runs a completely separate pipeline for traders and quants, built around aptitude games, mental-arithmetic tests, a market-making game, and a trading-simulator Superday. None of that appears in the SWE loop, so ignore trader-prep advice when it drifts into your feed.

The Shape of the Loop

A few numbers anchor the process. Hold them.

• The whole pipeline: 5 to 6 stages. A CV screen, a HackerRank online assessment, a one-way recorded video, a short recruiter call, then a final technical loop of one-on-ones. Start to finish it tends to run about four to eight weeks, though the pace shifts with team and region.
• The online assessment: A filter. Roughly 120 minutes on HackerRank, two coding problems in the medium-to-hard range, heavy on data structures and algorithms. IMC's own interviewers describe it as a time-saving screen. Some intakes add MCQs or an OOP task; some regions swap in a four-hour take-home.
• The flagship round: 2.5 to 3 hours. A working session with two senior engineers on an approximation of IMC's trading system. You spend about 30 minutes reading the problem alone, then roughly an hour solving it together, focused on performance and alternatives. They grade how you work more than the result.
• System design: Senior-leaning. When a design round appears it is low-latency flavored, "nothing like web-app system design." Experienced loops report a classical low-latency design session; new-grad loops center the working session and CS fundamentals instead.

The Process, Step by Step

The path is consistent across candidate accounts and IMC's own recruitment pages, though the exact stage count and order shift by region and intake. It opens with a CV screen, uses the HackerRank as a pass-or-fail gate, and lands in a final loop where the working session does the deciding.

The assessment's role is easy to misread. IMC uses the HackerRank round to save time. It's theoretical, algorithm-heavy and largely decoupled from the day-to-day job, but it isn't optional. Weak submissions end the process. Python solutions have been reported timing out against tight limits where C++ or Java clear comfortably, so pick a fast language and get the boundary handling right. Clear it cleanly, then put your real energy into the working session, where offers are won and lost.

The final loop decides. The CS-fundamentals round is a genuine conversation. Expect to explain what a thread is, how a hashtable beats a linear scan, when quicksort is the wrong choice, and the difference between signed and unsigned, from real understanding. Then the working session. You spend the first half hour reading the problem on your own, then roughly an hour building alongside two senior engineers on an approximation of IMC's trading system. The whole time, they're reading how you reason about performance and alternatives more than whether you reach a finished answer. One participant compared it to a day-to-day meeting with colleagues, and that's the register to bring.

The IMC Trading angle

Prepare for the loop IMC actually runs. Three things set it apart. First, the HackerRank is explicitly a filter, so passing it tells you nothing about the round that decides. Second, the working session grades how you work: your problem-solving, how fast you pick things up, and how you reason about performance and trade-offs. Almost nobody drills for it. Third, the whole thing carries a low-latency, systems mindset. Rehearse thinking aloud about performance with a partner, and don't let the HackerRank eat your prep.

Levels, Locations, and Logistics

IMC is a privately held market maker, founded in Amsterdam in 1989 and active on more than 100 exchanges, with major engineering offices in Amsterdam, Chicago, Sydney and Mumbai. Its culture is deliberately flat and non-hierarchical, and it hands engineers responsibility early. You see that in the interview. The working session is collaborative by design, and the CS-fundamentals round is a peer conversation rather than an interrogation.

On leveling, IMC's software engineering ladder runs from an entry level through experienced and senior bands (roughly L1 through L4 in public data). The loop shape is broadly stable across levels; depth is what scales. New-grad and early-career loops center the working session and CS fundamentals. Experienced and senior loops add a low-latency system design round, sometimes a multi-hour one. IMC is private with no public-market stock, so compensation is cash-heavy: a base plus a discretionary bonus and, often, a sign-on. The offer lesson digs into the numbers. For now, know there are no vesting equity levers to negotiate the way there would be at a listed firm.

What This Guide Covers

The rest of the guide takes each round apart and turns it into concrete preparation. Start wherever your own loop looks thinnest.

Common questions