What I’m sharing this time is that I participated in it in the United States IMC Complete interview process at Quantitative Trading. The overall experience can be summarized in one sentence: fast pace, high intensity, and extremely wide coverage. IMC not only tests algorithms, nor just mathematics, but covers everything from coding, probability and statistics, market understanding, and risk awareness to on-the-spot reaction speed. The position is Quant Trader. The whole process takes about three rounds, and the focus of each round is very obvious.
Round 1: Online Assessment
The first round of OA is already very difficult. It consists of three parts: programming test, mathematics test and psychological test.
coding
The programming portion is 45 minutes long with two Hackerrank moderately difficult questions. The first question is to count the number of triples that satisfy i<j<k and nums[i]<nums[j]<nums[k]. The essence is counting increasing triplets. Brute force O(n³) is not feasible and needs to be optimized to O(n log n) using prefix and suffix counting or Fenwick Tree. The second question is to design a data structure that supports adding prices, deleting prices, and querying the current median. I maintain median using double heap (max heap + min heap). Insertion and query are not difficult, but deletion operation is difficult and requires lazy deletion, otherwise it is easy to make errors.
Math test
The math test is 20 questions in 30 minutes, so time is extremely tight. Question types include tossing a coin to find the expected number of heads until two consecutive heads, the probability of drawing 5 flush cards out of 52 cards, the probability that the price exceeds the threshold under geometric Brownian motion, the expectation and variance of two dice, etc. The difficulty is not in the single question, but in the intensive rhythm. I didn't finish the last two questions, so I felt a little panicked at the time.
psychological testing
The psychological test is mainly situational judgment questions, such as "If you find a bug in the trading strategy, but the repair requires suspending trading for a day, what would you do?" This part obviously tests risk appetite and decision-making style. IMC attaches great importance to risk control.
One week later, I received the next round of invitations and successfully entered the core interview stage.
Round 2: Phone Interview
This round is 45 minutes with a Quant Trader and is very fast paced.
Resume Digging
I wrote an options pricing project and was asked how to deal with volatility smile, how to calibrate the model to market data, and how to evaluate model accuracy. It is not enough to just stay at the level of the Black-Scholes formula. You must understand the actual market pricing behavior and parameter fitting logic.
Market knowledge test
Was asked about the formula for Put-Call Parity: C + PV(K) = P + S, and how to build the arbitrage combination if it is broken. The focus here is to understand how synthetic long and synthetic short are constructed, and how to implement risk-free arbitrage.
Probability problem
Probability questions include the probability that the sum of two dice is 7 (1/6), and the probability of the sum being 7 given that the sum is known to be greater than 5 (3/13). The interviewer will repeatedly confirm whether you are sure of the answer. They will not only examine the results, but also your confidence in your calculations.
Classic brain teasers
25 horses, no timer, minimum number of races to find the top three. The standard answer is 7 games. Then I was asked what I would do if I found the top five, and I gave a plan of 8 games. The core of this type of problem is logical pruning capabilities.
Risk hedging issues
How to hedge delta risk by holding call option? The core answer is to short the delta unit target, and explain gamma risk and why continuous rebalance is needed. Talking about delta hedge is incomplete, one must mention higher order risk exposures.
Round 3: Technical Interview
Mental Math
First up is Mental Math. 20 questions in 10 minutes, including multiplication of two digits, multiplication of decimals, square root, compound interest calculation, etc. For example, 17×23, 156÷12, 0.35×0.42, √128, etc. Accuracy is important, but interviewers emphasize speed. In a real trading environment, reaction time is critical.
Probability & Statistics
Next is Probability & Statistics. One of the classic questions is: 52 cards are drawn one at a time and then put back. How many times do you expect to draw all the cards at least once? This is a Coupon Collector problem with an expectation of 52 × H₅₂, about 236 times. If you don't know the formula for harmonic number, it's easy to get stuck.
Final result
Finally, I successfully passed all the procedures and got the IMC Quantitative Trading Offer. If you are also preparing for high-intensity quantitative positions such as IMC, Optiver, and Jane Street, it is really recommended not to "try your luck" just by answering questions. Need OA real-time assists , special training, and VO assistance, you can come to us to learn about specific plans. For high-intensity positions, the preparation method must be correct. For high-intensity positions, the competition is not talent, but the quality of preparation.
