Chicago Trading Company

The QTA technical segment leans on quantitative reasoning, probability, mental maths and estimation; the SE technical segment is coding-based. Because the final stage requires travel to Chicago for every candidate who advances, the loop closes with a multi-day in-person commitment on top of the rest of the autumn application season.

Chicago Trading Company runs a 10-week summer internship based in Chicago, with two named tracks:

• Quant Trading Associate (QTA) intern – a mathematical and probability-led track that mirrors the full-time QTA role, taught through a week-long Basics of Options class, an Intro to Options Market Making trading-simulation series, and a Quant Curriculum
• Software Engineer (SE) intern – focused on the firm's proprietary trading platform

Housing in the Loop, a short walk from the office, is provided for all interns. The firm's campus job board currently lists full-time campus roles spanning Associate Engineer (Chicago), Quant Trading Associate (Amsterdam) and Systematic Quantitative Researcher PhD (Chicago/New York). The summer cohort runs once a year out of a single city and is the primary feed into full-time hires, so the QTA versus SE choice and the Chicago location are decided at the application step rather than rebalanced later in the funnel.

It also runs an in-house venture arm, CTC Venture Capital, investing in early-stage trading and fintech firms. Campus recruiting is structured as a single Chicago summer cohort with provided housing and a Chicago-only final round, with QTA and SE as the two named tracks. For a candidate choosing between proprietary trading firms, the trade-off is concrete: an options-focused franchise and one summer city, rather than rotational breadth across asset classes or offices.