About Careertakes

👉 Important disclosure: Careertakes is a third-party recruiting platform supporting this hiring process. If selected, you will be employed directly by our client, Financial Services.

Applicants for this role may also receive access to additional matched opportunities through the Careertakes platform.

---

Overview

Confidential Client is hiring a Data Scientist to support Options Market Making efforts in Chicago, IL. This full-time role is ideal for candidates with a quantitative background who want to build domain expertise in US equity options microstructure, design and run experiments, and help shape production analytics that inform trading decisions and strategy tuning.

---

What You’ll Do

• Gain deep domain expertise on US equity options exchange microstructure.
• Propose, implement, and maintain production testing pipelines inside an experimentation framework.
• Curate, document, and present experimentation and post-trade analytics to trading and engineering partners.
• Generate ideas for trading feature enhancements and parameter tuning driven by post-trade analysis.
• Work with very large tick databases to build and maintain core datasets that boost team productivity and strategy development.

---

What We’re Looking For

• Degree or background in a quantitative field (e.g., Statistics, Data Science, Mathematics, Engineering, Economics).
• Strong grasp of basic statistical concepts such as regression analysis and experiment design.
• Proficient in Python and common data science libraries (pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn, etc.).
• Comfortable with object-oriented programming; willingness to learn C# is required.
• Interest in low-level system details (networking, FPGA concepts) or willingness to learn them.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Intellectual curiosity, methodical problem-solving, and an experimentation mindset.

---

Why Join Us

Confidential Client operates a flat organizational structure that encourages cross-functional collaboration and fast feedback. You’ll work alongside experienced trading, research, and engineering teams, gain broad exposure to production systems, and contribute ideas that directly impact market-making performance.

---

Benefits & Compensation

• Base salary range: $100,000 — $150,000 per year (actual pay contingent on experience).
• Competitive annual discretionary bonus opportunity.
• Generous paid time off and flexible scheduling.
• 100% coverage of medical, dental, vision, life, and disability benefits for single coverage.
• Generous paid parental leave.
• Retirement plans (401(k) and Roth 401(k)) and profit-sharing options.
• Long- and short-term disability.

---

Additional Perks

• Free breakfast and lunch from an in-house kitchen with rotating menus.
• On-site gym with subsidized membership.
• Frequent company outings and team events.
• Opportunities for community involvement in the Chicagoland area.

---

Professional Development

• In-house education programs, courses, and resources to support continuous learning.
• Mentorship program during your first six months.

---

Equal Opportunity & Hiring Transparency

Careertakes and our client are Equal Opportunity Employers committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce. We prohibit discrimination or harassment of any kind. To support a fair and efficient hiring process, AI tools may be used to assist with application review or resume screening. These tools do not replace human decision-making. Final hiring decisions are made by people.

If you have questions about how your data is used, please contact us directly.