IMCSoftware Engineer (Java) - Global Research Platform
IMC is hiring a Software Engineer (Java) - Global Research Platform in Mumbai, India. Level rates it ; you can apply on IMC.
Level's read on this job
- Level rates this software engineer role Little AI ●○○○: aI is not part of the work.
- Tools and skills the posting cites include Java, Kubernetes and Docker.
- Level classifies it as a mid-level role.
- Level lists 167 other open roles at IMC.
AI in this role
Builds and operates the Java backend of a distributed job scheduling and research compute platform using Kubernetes and Kafka.
We are seeking a driven Java engineer to join our global research platform team in Mumbai. The team builds and operates the compute and data platform that powers all of IMC's quantitative research: a large-scale Kubernetes-based research cluster, a distributed job scheduling platform used by every trading and research team, and the market-data and dataset services that feed research on it. Mumbai runs one of the platform's regional production deployments, and you'll collaborate closely with platform colleagues in Amsterdam, Chicago and Sydney.
Your Core Responsibilities:
- Design, build and operate the Java backend of our distributed job scheduling platform: the job controller and state machine, scheduling integrations, resource and cost tracking, and the failure-recovery machinery that keeps research workloads running at scale
- Develop gRPC/protobuf APIs consumed by Python, Java and C++ clients across the firm
- Build event-driven services on Kafka for job lifecycle tracking, data lineage, and dataset orchestration
- Work hands-on with Kubernetes at scale: pod scheduling, fair-share queueing, preemption and multi-cluster placement
- Instrument, monitor and firefight production systems, and drive root-cause analysis of performance bottlenecks
- Support and consult research users in the India office
Your Skills and Experience:
- 3+ years of professional Java development experience (Java 17+, Maven/Gradle, strong grasp of concurrency and JVM performance)
- 2+ year of hands-on experience with Kubernetes and Docker (building on the K8s API is a strong plus)
- Comfortable developing in Python; our client libraries and research users are Python-first, and you'll work on both sides of the API
- Solid understanding of distributed systems fundamentals: state machines, retries/idempotency, event-driven architectures, consistency trade-offs
- Experience with workload scheduling or batch/compute orchestration systems (e.g. Kubernetes schedulers, Slurm, YARN, Kueue, Ray, Airflow)
- Experience with messaging/streaming systems such as Kafka
- Working knowledge of NoSQL and time-series/SQL databases (e.g. MongoDB, PostgreSQL)
- Experience with gRPC/protobuf or similar RPC frameworks is a plus
- Strong Linux fundamentals and scripting (bash, Python)
- Experience with monitoring stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, alerting) and comfort operating what you build
- Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot across the stack from application code through Kubernetes to network and storage
- Exposure to object storage (S3) or high-performance data formats (Parquet, Iceberg)
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.
How we rate this
Software Engineer (Java) - Global Research Platform at IMC rates 0 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Little AI (AI Level 1 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Little AI. AI is not part of the work.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Also common in software engineer jobs at this level
Pay
- Typical software engineer job
- $167k
This posting doesn't list pay. Use the typical software engineer figure when pay comes up. See software engineer jobs
Questions you could be asked
- Tell me about a project where distributed systems was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where backend engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where job scheduling was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where api development was part of your work. What did you do?
- Walk me through how you've used Java in your day-to-day work.
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: Distributed Systems, Backend Engineering, Job Scheduling, API Development, and Java. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
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