Graduate trader or researcher
$250,000
Base salary in IMC’s Chicago ads
Graduate software engineer
$200,000
Base salary, Chicago
First-year trader total
ReportedAbout $308,000
Median base plus median bonus, graduate traders in Chicago
Trader and researcher interns
About $4,810 a week
A $250,000 yearly base, Summer 2027, Chicago
Chicago quant trader, first year
EstimateAbout $255,000 to $450,000
Base plus bonus at every firm, for comparison
Amsterdam quant trader, first year
EstimateAbout €150,000 to €300,000
Base plus bonus at every firm, in euros
IMC is a market maker founded in 1989 by two traders on the floor of the Amsterdam equity options exchange. It now has more than 2,000 employees across 10 offices and trades on more than 120 venues.
The firm is Dutch, but its pay is easiest to read in Chicago. There, its ads state one base per graduate role: $250,000 for a quant trader or researcher and $200,000 for a software engineer. Each permanent employee is also eligible for a discretionary bonus, which IMC does not publish.
How much does IMC pay graduates?
A graduate quant trader or quant researcher at IMC in Chicago starts on a $250,000 base, whether they hold a Bachelor’s, a Master’s or a PhD. Graduate software engineers start on $200,000. Graduate machine learning researchers, a specialist hire, start on $300,000.
The US salary filings agree with the ads, because IMC files many positions under graduate job titles. Across every level, the typical filed base is $250,000 for traders, $250,000 to $300,000 for researchers and $200,000 for developers.
Filed US base salaries, July 2025 to June 2026
| Job title as filed | Median base | Lowest to highest |
|---|---|---|
| Graduate Quantitative Trader | $250,000 | $250,000 |
| Graduate Quantitative Researcher | $250,000 | $250,000 to $300,000 |
| Graduate Software Engineer | $200,000 | $200,000 |
| Trader | $250,000 | $250,000 to $300,000 |
| Software Engineer | $200,000 | $175,000 to $225,000 |
The median is the middle filing for the title; the range runs from the lowest to the highest, across every level the firm hires at.
What does the first year at IMC pay in total?
With the first bonus, our estimate for a first-year quant trader in Chicago is $255,000 to $450,000. That estimate covers every firm in the city, not IMC alone. For the firm itself, what its graduates report is the closest view.
Reported by employeesReported
Graduate quant traders in Chicago report a median base of about $171,000 and a median bonus of about $137,000 (7 reports, 2025 to 2026). The reported base is below the $250,000 in the current ad, so the bonus is the more useful figure here. Entry-level quant researchers report a median base of $250,000 and a bonus of about $47,000 (4 reports).
How does pay grow after the first year?
Mostly through the bonus. In what IMC’s US employees report, the base stays close to its first-year level for the first six years, while total pay climbs. Across every Chicago firm, our estimate for a quant trader rises from $255,000 to $450,000 in the first year to $345,000 to $930,000 after four to six years.
What IMC employees in the US report, by years of experienceReported
| Experience | Base | Total pay |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $200,000 | $288,000 to $400,000 |
| 1 to 3 years | $180,000 | $302,000 to $410,000 |
| 4 to 6 years | $194,000 | $394,000 to $450,000 |
Base and bonus that traders, researchers and developers report on public pay sites. Total pay is the middle half of what they report, or both figures where two people report. A single year’s bonus can fall well outside it.
How much do IMC interns earn?
Quant trader and quant research interns in Chicago earn about $4,810 a week in Summer 2027: IMC states their pay as a $250,000 yearly base, paid for the weeks worked. Software engineering interns are on a $200,000 yearly base, about $3,850 a week.
What does IMC pay in Amsterdam?
For a first-year quant trader in Amsterdam, our estimate is €150,000 to €300,000 with the bonus, across every firm in the city. IMC’s Amsterdam graduate ads state no pay, so what employees report is the closest view of the firm itself.
What IMC employees in the Netherlands report, by years of experienceReported
| Experience | Base | Total pay |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | €100,000 | €130,000 to €135,000 |
| 1 to 3 years | €109,000 | €155,000 to €156,000 |
| 4 to 6 years | €107,000 | €162,000 to €185,000 |
Base and bonus that traders, researchers and developers report on public pay sites. Total pay is the middle half of what they report, or both figures where two people report. A single year’s bonus can fall well outside it.
Reported by employeesReported
Quant traders at IMC in Amsterdam report, in US dollars, a median total of about $304,000 on a median base of $177,000, across all levels (37 reports, January 2026). Entry-level software engineers in Amsterdam report sign-on bonuses of €15,000 to €35,000 (reports from 2020 to 2023).
How does IMC compare with other firms?
At $250,000, IMC’s graduate base sits one step below the $300,000 that Jane Street, HRT and SIG advertise, and level with the bottom of DRW’s $250,000 to $300,000 campus range.
IMC states $250,000. 6 firms advertise a higher graduate base, up to $300k. This is base pay only: the bonus comes on top, and within a few years it grows to match or pass the base.
- Hudson River Trading$300,000
- Jane Street$300,000
- Jump Tradingintern rate$300,000
- SIG$300,000
- DRW$250,000 to $300,000
- Citadel$235,000 to $300,000
- Citadel Securities$235,000 to $300,000
- IMC$250,000
- Optiver$200,000
- Two Sigma$165,000 to $190,000
- Flow Traders$175,000
The base salary each firm states in its US graduate job ads, September 2026. The bonus comes on top.
How do you get an IMC offer?
IMC hires traders for speed and judgement with numbers. The process opens with an online assessment of short cognitive games, and later rounds move to probability, mental arithmetic, estimation and market-making games, where you quote a price and adjust it as trades come in. Researchers and engineers get more statistics and coding in place of some of the trading.
The IMC interview guide walks through each stage and how it differs by role and office. The practice page has tests and questions matched to the firm, so the first market-making game you play is not the one that counts.