Software Engineer - AI Tooling

IMC•Chicago, IL

21h•$175,000 - $225,000

About The Position

The Development Platform organization at IMC Trading builds and maintains self-service tools, services, documentation, and support that accelerate technology team workflows. It provides the technical foundation for IMC’s software development lifecycle and operates the infrastructure for integrating agentic AI into production-critical engineering workflows, including agent environments, system integrations, and safety and security controls. IMC is seeking a Software Engineer based in Chicago to build software for AI-powered engineering workflows. The work spans agent harnesses, developer workspaces, context delivery, and tooling that connects AI agents to internal services. This collaborative role offers substantial ownership: the engineer works directly with other engineers to understand needs, shape solutions, and carry projects from design and implementation through delivery and ongoing improvement. Strong software engineering fundamentals and eagerness to learn are important; prior AI tooling experience is welcome but not required.

Requirements

At least 3 years of work experience in a relevant role.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent.
Strong programming experience in a high-level language; Python or Java preferred.
Experience building developer-facing tools, APIs, or production systems.
Understanding of security principles and best practices, including authentication and authorization patterns and secrets management.
Familiarity with containerization technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes.
Curiosity and eagerness to learn about AI/LLM application patterns.
Strong communication skills and ability to work directly with stakeholders to understand their needs and connect them to broader team priorities.
Ability to take ownership of open-ended problems, shape solutions, and carry them through delivery in a fast, collaborative environment.

Nice To Haves

Exposure to agentic AI tools and workflows, such as coding agents or MCP servers.
Prior experience building AI tooling.

Responsibilities

Partner with engineering teams to understand workflows, clarify needs, and shape solutions aligned with broader team priorities.
Own software projects from problem definition and technical design through implementation, rollout, and ongoing improvement.
Develop and extend agent harnesses and workspace capabilities to integrate AI coding tools into engineering workflows and provide a consistent, high-quality experience.
Improve how agent workflows access relevant context from internal systems, working with stakeholders to define and evolve these capabilities.
Develop shared tooling to make MCP servers easier to build and maintain, including standardized authentication patterns, reusable components, and project templates.
Contribute to in-house agents for IMC-specific workflows and to evaluation and benchmarking tooling for measuring quality.
Build security, reliability, and observability into software and integrations.
Collaborate with global Development Platform colleagues to support adoption, gather feedback, and improve the developer experience.