Pros
- Intelligent coworkers who are for the most part friendly people
- Lunch and coffee provided
- Very nice office
- High pay compared to other industries
- Good place to start your career as a grad if you have no offers elsewhere.
Cons
- The culture is getting substantially worse as times have gotten tough. The thing that used to make IMC stand out amongst their peers was they didn't hire to fire. Everyone they hired they wanted to keep. This has changed, they now overhire and fire similarly to other firms.
- However unlike other firms, IMC is not nearly as profitable. Nor does IMC pay the sort of high bonuses other firms pay. Indeed bonus is very opaque.
- No work life balance has collapsed. Expect 11 hour days everyday with no downtime. This is not unusual for trading firms, but the payout at IMC makes this unbearable.
- Don't be fooled by recruitment. They oversell the role. The "trader" role is not really a trader role. It's more of an operations role where you maintain IMC's extremely complex and bloated system. This means you're not learning the usual skills of a trader that are transferrable to other firms. Limited exit opportunities and this is problematic because a long term career at IMC is not viable (see next point).
- Because the role is more of a "maintanence" role, you are not particularly valuable as a trader and can be replaced very easily. No job security. Once you are senior enough and typically start desiring a higher pay, management can very easily fire you and replace you with a grad. You are then stuck with skills that are completely untransferrable to any other firm, even other HFT's in the options space.
- If you are a graduate, do not take this role over another trading firm. You will learn substantially more at other firms, be paid more and IMC does not offer a higher job security. Only around 1/2 grads make it through the year.