Quantitative Researcher - Data Curation
Posted Sep 30, 2026 · We last checked this listing on Oct 6, 2026
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 data error you caught that others missed. How did you find it?
What they are checking: Attention to detail, which the posting names as essential for this role.
Tell me about research you did that used curated data to find a market pattern.
What they are checking: Whether they can move from cleaning data to finding insight, which the role also requires.
What would you do
A vendor sends an alternative dataset and claims it predicts returns. How do you evaluate it?
What they are checking: Whether they check for survivorship, lookahead and real predictive value before recommending a buy.
A trader says a dataset looks wrong this morning, and trading starts soon. What do you do?
What they are checking: How they prioritize timeliness and accuracy under pressure without guessing.
How do you work with a data acquisition team when a vendor keeps sending late or incomplete files?
What they are checking: Collaboration across teams to fix data quality at the source.
About the work
How would you validate a day of US equity options market data before researchers use it?
What they are checking: Practical knowledge of the checks that catch bad quotes, gaps and timestamp problems.
How do you adjust historical equity data for splits, dividends and symbol changes?
What they are checking: Core data curation knowledge that quietly breaks research when done wrong.
How do you handle point-in-time issues with fundamental data so research doesn't use information that wasn't known yet?
What they are checking: Understanding of point-in-time data, a key source of false results in backtests.
How would you design a pipeline that serves the same data to both research and live trading?
What they are checking: Whether they can build robust pipelines that keep research and production consistent.
How do you document data provenance so someone can reproduce your results a year from now?
What they are checking: Their standards for documentation and reproducibility, which the posting stresses.
What statistical methods do you use to find outliers in market data without removing real events?
What they are checking: Judgment about cleaning data while keeping the real market behavior that matters.
Practice this interview out loud.
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Practice this out loudThe full job description
As published by IMC Trading.