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Data Platform Operations Engineer – Performance

IMC Trading · Chicago, IL · Development (Group)

Posted Sep 30, 2026 · We last checked this listing on Oct 6, 2026

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Likely interview questions for this role

Written from this job description, not a generic list. Each one notes what the interviewer is really checking.

About your past

Tell me about a runbook or tool you wrote that made on-call easier for others.

What they are checking: Whether they build operational tooling and documentation that others can use.

Tell me about a pipeline you tuned to run faster or cheaper. What did you change?

What they are checking: Hands-on experience improving performance and efficiency of data workloads.

How do you keep stakeholders informed when a data problem affects their work?

What they are checking: Communication in a production-facing role that works closely with stakeholders.

What would you do

An ETL that feeds performance reports finished on time but the numbers look wrong. Walk me through your investigation.

What they are checking: Whether they check correctness, not just completion, and drive issues to root cause.

A GitLab CI/CD pipeline for a data workflow starts failing intermittently. How do you debug it?

What they are checking: Ownership of CI/CD issues, which the posting names directly.

The Performance team needs data by morning, and a pipeline failed overnight. What do you do first?

What they are checking: How they prioritize timeliness while keeping data correct under pressure.

How do you decide whether to fix a recurring data issue at the source or work around it?

What they are checking: Whether they push for real root cause fixes instead of permanent patches.

About the work

What data quality checks would you build for performance data that decision makers rely on?

What they are checking: Their approach to catching bad data before it reaches reports and alerts.

How do you find which workloads are using too many resources on a shared platform?

What they are checking: Skill monitoring resource usage and finding imbalances and bottlenecks.

How would you make a data pipeline observable so problems are obvious quickly?

What they are checking: Whether they design logging, metrics and alerting into pipelines from the start.

What SQL or Python techniques do you use to compare two versions of a dataset and find differences?

What they are checking: Practical skills for investigating data issues quickly and accurately.

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The full job description

As published by IMC Trading.

We are looking for a data-focused engineer with a strong operational focus to support the Performance Team’s data platform at IMC. This role is responsible for the reliability, correctness, and performance of data systems that directly support performance analysis and decision-making. The role is production-facing and works closely with the Performance team and aligned stakeholders to ensure data workflows are robust, observable, and efficient. Your Core Responsibilities: • Own the operational health of the Performance Team’s data platform • Monitor and maintain ETLs and data pipelines for correctness, timeliness, and stability • Design and maintain data quality checks, reports, and alerting specific to performance data • Investigate and resolve data issues and pipeline failures, driving problems to root cause • Own and troubleshoot GitLab CI/CD pipeline issues related to performance data workflows • Monitor workloads and resource usage; identify and resolve imbalances and bottlenecks • Build and maintain operational tooling, automation, and runbooks • Continuously tune data pipelines and workloads to improve performance and resource efficiency Your Skills & Experience: • 3+ years of experience in software engineering or data engineering with an operational or production focus • A Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or a related field is strongly preferred • Proficiency in Python, with hands-on experience using PySpark and Pandas • Experience supporting production ETL or data processing systems • Familiarity with Git-based development workflows and CI/CD systems (GitLab preferred) • Strong analytical skills and attention to detail • Comfortable taking ownership in a performance- and reliability-critical environment • Experience working with performance-critical or high-throughput systems • Exposure to workload scheduling, resource management, or cluster-based compute The Base Salary range for the role is included below. Base salary is only one component of total compensation; all full-time, permanent positions are eligible for a discretionary bonus and benefits, including paid leave and insurance. Please visit Benefits - US | IMC Trading for more comprehensive information. Salary Range $185,000 — $225,000 USD About Us IMC is a research-driven trading firm where quantitative modeling, machine learning, and engineering shape how modern markets are traded. A stabilizing force in markets since 1989, we provide liquidity across trading venues, delivering the best outcome in value and risk management to investors. Using our own technology and capital, we build proprietary systems and algorithms that operate across global markets. Our researchers, traders, and engineers work as a collective, combining rapid experimentation, advanced infrastructure, and real-time feedback to turn insight into execution and execution into advantage.  

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