As a Performance Engineer at IMC, you will play a pivotal role in analysing, optimising, and tuning our systems interaction with exchange systems holistically. Working closely with cross-functional teams, you’ll be tasked with uncovering performance improvements across the trading stack. This role combines technical ingenuity with creative problem-solving to outsmart competition in one of the most demanding technical landscapes.

Your Core Responsibilities: 

• Black Box Reverse Engineering and Analysis: Analyse and understand the behaviour of complex systems using black-box techniques, identifying performance bottlenecks and optimisation opportunities. Designing and performing statistical experiments to explain emergent real world phenomena.
• Experimentation & Prototyping: Design, implement, and test innovative ideas, experiments and technologies. Develop quick internal prototypes to evaluate performance and real-world applicability.
• Collaboration & Communication: Liaise effectively with traders, software and hardware engineers, and infrastructure teams to share insights and implement solutions.
• System Analysis: Analyse terabytes of network data to identify patterns, validate hypotheses, and optimise system performance.

Your Skills and Experience: 

While not all of the below is required a deep understanding in at least one of the following areas would be an advantage

• Strong understanding of computer internals, Linux systems, and networking. Familiarity with tools and techniques for reverse engineering, kernel tuning, system-level optimisation, and low-level network optimisation.
• Proven commercial experience with Python and/or languages like C++ or Java.
• Familiarity with low-latency hardware technologies, such as Intel CPUs, FPGA, and microwave links.
• Understanding of complex, bespoke networks and networking stacks.
• Hands-on experience with performance tuning, and system-level optimisations.
• Experience with data and system analysis.
• Capable of working autonomously while contributing to a multidisciplinary team. Always looking for ways to gain an edge.