Equity Options Trader

IMC

About the role IMC’s Macro Analyst team provides traders with market-moving insights and actionable trading ideas across global macro and volatility markets. As a Senior Macro Analyst, you will be based in Amsterdam and take ownership of generating insights and trading ideas across European equity index volatility and related markets. Working closely with traders and the Lead Macro Analyst, you will develop event-driven scenarios, identify opportunities around global macro themes, and help shape IMC’s response to fast-moving economic, political, and market developments. You will translate complex market information into clear trading implications, contribute to macro-driven strategies across options and volatility products, and play a key role in ensuring IMC remains ahead of market narratives. This is a highly collaborative role for someone who combines strong macro judgment, deep market understanding, and the ability to communicate clearly and decisively under time pressure. Your Core Responsibilities * Generate actionable trading ideas and market analysis across European equity index volatility, options, spreads, futures, and related financial instruments; * Develop and maintain scenario analyses around key market-moving events, including economic data releases, central bank meetings, national budgets, elections, geopolitical developments, and unexpected macro shocks; * Monitor global and European macro themes, identifying how changes in policy, politics, growth, inflation, rates, FX, and risk sentiment may affect equity index volatility and related markets; * Provide traders with timely, clear, and actionable updates on what is driving markets during European trading hours and relevant out-of-hours futures sessions; * React quickly to breaking news and unexpected market events, assessing potential outcomes, market impact, and trading opportunities in real time; * Work closely with traders to evaluate risk/reward, refine trading hypotheses, and contribute to the development of macro-driven options and volatility strategies; * Contribute to discussions around macro-driven positions, market themes, PnL drivers, and evolving risks across European and global markets; * Take ownership of specific research areas, recurring event playbooks, analytical frameworks, or market coverage themes; * Help ensure strong operational coverage of key events, market sessions, and trader needs through disciplined preparation, responsiveness, and high-quality communication; * Collaborate with other IMC analyst teams across Amsterdam, Chicago, Sydney, and Mumbai to share insights, compare market views, and strengthen global coverage; * Support the development of more junior analysts by sharing market knowledge, improving team processes, and helping raise the overall quality of the team’s output; * Continuously improve the team’s analytical tools, event preparation, communication formats, and trading idea generation process. Your Skills and Experience * 4–6+ years of experience in a trading, macro research, volatility, options, or strategy-focused role, ideally at a high-frequency trading firm, investment bank, hedge fund, asset manager, or market-making environment; * Strong understanding of European financial markets and the macroeconomic, political, and geopolitical factors that influence equity indices, volatility, rates, FX, and broader risk sentiment; * Experience analyzing equity index products, options, volatility, futures, spreads, or related financial instruments; * Proven ability to translate macro events, political developments, and market headlines into practical trading implications; * Strong scenario analysis skills, with the ability to assess probabilities, market impact, positioning, and potential second-order effects; * Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to engage traders clearly, succinctly, and confidently in fast-moving market conditions; * Sound market judgment and the ability to form independent views while incorporating feedback from traders and other analysts; * Calm, focused, and decisive when markets are moving quickly or information is incomplete; * Collaborative mindset, with the ability to work effectively with traders, analysts, and global teams; * High level of ownership, curiosity, and intellectual drive, with a strong interest in markets, policy, politics, and global events; * Entrepreneurial approach, with a desire to improve processes, develop new analytical frameworks, and contribute ideas that can directly impact trading outcomes. About Us IMC is a global trading firm powered by a cutting-edge research environment and a world-class technology backbone. Since 1989, we’ve been a stabilizing force in financial markets, providing essential liquidity upon which market participants depend. Across our offices in the US, Europe, Asia Pacific, and India, our talented quant researchers, engineers, traders, and business operations professionals are united by our uniquely collaborative, high-performance culture, and our commitment to giving back. From entering dynamic new markets to embracing disruptive technologies, and from developing an innovative research environment to diversifying our trading strategies, we dare to continuously innovate and collaborate to succeed.

Maven Securities

Maven is a market-leading proprietary trading firm deploying its own capital across discretionary, systematic, and market-making strategies. Backed by deep expertise in trading, technology, and research, we are relentlessly focused on improving liquidity across global listed derivatives. Through advanced execution and pricing technologies, we improve how financial markets operate. THE ROLE We are looking for an ambitious and proactive Equity Options Quant Trader to join our Vol Alpha Trading Team. This is a full-cycle quant trader position within a semi-systematic desk that specialises in statistical arbitrage relative value volatility,  flow-aware volatility position taking, and opportunistic dispersion trades across global equity volatilities, with a current emphasis on US equity options. The team runs an investment operation focusing on informed position taking combining statistical information and market flows observations. The successful candidate will play a key role in the desk’s day to day operation and future evolution as it expands its volatility strategies set as well as broader operation capabilities across products. The role will suit candidates with quantitative research or trading experience as part of a large volatility desk who want to transition into a more hands-on buy side risk-taking role which deploy statistical methods to extract alpha while having full understanding on what is driving an alpha’s performance. The successful candidate will experience an end-to-end investment process from market intuition, alpha discovery, to trade execution, which translates to a potential heavy contribution to the desk’s success and take meaningful ownership in PnL. RESPONSIBILITIES * Monitor and rationalise market flow to identify pricing dislocations * Analyse and interpret other market participants’ positionings to identify trading opportunities * Conduct research and backtests on pricing and structuring volatility curve, term structure, relative value and dispersion trades * Contribute to new alpha discovery through a combination of market dynamics observations and quantitative research toolings * Active participation in trading and risk-managing an extensive equity options portfolio as part of a team * Active participation in the desk’s future build-out into a bigger set of alpha and systematic strategies * Full end-to-end investment cycle from intuition, research, to execution * Collaboration with infrastructure and development teams to optimise electronic trading execution and minimise dependencies CANDIDATE SPECIFICATIONS * 2–5 years’ experience in US equity options quantitative research or trading. Experience from a major vol desk is a plus (bank, or multi-strategy hedge fund preferred) * Strong understanding of options markets, volatility, and equity derivatives * Exposure to or strong interest in volatility relative value, volatility carry, term structure and path, or dispersion strategies * Commercial trading mindset with appetite for risk ownership and strategy responsibility * Strong interest and ability to operate in a fast-moving, opportunistic trading environment * Strong analytical skills and research capabilities * Familiarity with Python and SQL or similar programming and database languages WHAT WE OFFER * A fast-growing global firm with plenty of opportunities where you will have a significant impact * Competitive compensation package * Annual discretionary bonus * Group pension plan * Enhanced annual leave allowance after 2+ years’ service * 25 days’ annual leave (plus public holidays) * Fully catered breakfast, lunch, and snacks prepared by an in-house chef * Private healthcare and life assurance * On-site private gym with instructor-led classes including boxing, yoga, and more * Monthly company events and social activities

IMC

We're building out a trading initiative in London, with a growing focus on listed commodities options. This expansion is supported by a mix of internal talent and experienced external hires. With a collaborative and entrepreneurial culture, the team offers a unique opportunity to help shape and scale a new desk from an early stage. The group combines deep expertise with broad trading experience and values innovation, ownership, and cross-functional collaboration. As the desk continues to grow, there will be increasing opportunities to take on broader responsibilities and contribute meaningfully to its success.  Your Core Responsibilities * Maximize revenue by identifying and monetizing short- and long-term mispricings, as well as managing the resulting positions * Be able to take lots of responsibility and ownership early in your time here to drive the strategy forward * Managing risk and developing market making strategies * You will have lots of responsibility and ownership early on to drive strategies forward and be successful * IMC is highly collaborative between traders, quants, and developers so the scope of responsibility is fairly fluid involving a mixture of data-driven analysis, quantitative modelling and algorithm development Your skills and experience: * 3+ years’ experience in Commodities Options markets highly preferred, other asset classes such as Equity Options will be considered if from a proprietary trading environment  * BS, MS, or PhD, preferably in STEM * You have a quantitative and strategic mindset and a healthy appetite for risk * Strong technical skills in Statistics and Python * You have a proven ability to act and make decisions in a fast-paced and competitive environment * You are analytical, passionate about reflecting on past trades, and always seeking to do better * Experience with managing risk and developing market making strategies * Product experience is preferred * Strong communication and teamwork abilities About Us IMC is a global trading firm powered by a cutting-edge research environment and a world-class technology backbone. Since 1989, we’ve been a stabilizing force in financial markets, providing essential liquidity upon which market participants depend. Across our offices in the US, Europe, Asia Pacific, and India, our talented quant researchers, engineers, traders, and business operations professionals are united by our uniquely collaborative, high-performance culture, and our commitment to giving back. From entering dynamic new markets to embracing disruptive technologies, and from developing an innovative research environment to diversifying our trading strategies, we dare to continuously innovate and collaborate to succeed.