Key Takeaways
- Cboe Global Markets is the world's leading options exchange operator, the home of the VIX, and the operator of US equities (BZX, BYX, EDGA, EDGX), futures (CFE), FX, and exchanges across Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan.
- All applications run through Phenom at careers.cboe.com; resumes that mirror job-description vocabulary score measurably better and Talent Community opt-in accelerates recruiter contact.
- Technology roles in Chicago compete head-to-head with proprietary trading firms (Citadel Securities, Jump, DRW, IMC, Optiver) on compensation and culture; deep low-latency, market-structure, and protocol expertise wins.
- CEO Fred Tomczyk took over in September 2023 after Edward Tilly resigned over relationship-disclosure failures; the Tomczyk era emphasizes operational discipline, integration of acquired exchanges, and a sharper derivatives focus.
- Interviews are direct, technically demanding, and reward intellectual honesty; intellectual fluency in the Greeks, market microstructure, and the regulatory environment matters across nearly every role.
- Hybrid in-office is the norm at headquarters in Chicago, with major secondary hubs in New York, London, Amsterdam, Singapore, Tokyo, Sydney, Toronto, and a back office in Manila.
- Cboe sponsors work visas for technology and quantitative roles in the United States but is more conservative about sponsorship in non-technical functions; ask the recruiter early.
- Differentiators versus CME and ICE: Cboe is the dominant listed-options venue and the proprietor of the VIX; CME leads in interest-rate and equity-index futures; ICE leads in energy futures and owns NYSE.
About Cboe Global Markets
Application Process
-
1
Start at careers
Start at careers.cboe.com, the company's Phenom-powered career site. Use the search filters to narrow by location (Chicago, New York, London, Amsterdam, Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore, Toronto, Manila), business unit (Technology, Markets, Data Vantage, Corporate), and category. Almost every Cboe role globally is posted here regardless of which acquired entity originated it.
-
2
Create a candidate profile and upload a clean ATS-readable PDF or DOCX resume
Create a candidate profile and upload a clean ATS-readable PDF or DOCX resume. Phenom's parser will pre-fill work history, education, and skills fields. Review the parsed output carefully and correct anything misread before submitting, particularly dates, employer names, and skill tags, which Phenom uses for downstream matching and recommendations.
-
3
Tailor every application to the job description
Tailor every application to the job description. Cboe recruiters and Phenom's matching algorithms both score resume-to-JD overlap. For technology roles call out the specific protocols, languages, and systems mentioned (FIX, OUCH, ITCH, multicast UDP, kernel bypass, C++, Java, Linux). For markets, sales, and product roles mirror the asset classes and venues named in the posting.
-
4
Expect a recruiter screen first, typically a 30-minute call covering motivation,
Expect a recruiter screen first, typically a 30-minute call covering motivation, compensation expectations, work authorization, and a high-level walkthrough of your background. Cboe recruiters are professional and direct, and they will ask why Cboe specifically rather than CME, ICE, Nasdaq, or a proprietary trading firm.
-
5
The next step is usually a hiring-manager interview focused on relevant domain d
The next step is usually a hiring-manager interview focused on relevant domain depth. For engineering candidates, expect a discussion of recent projects, technology choices, and trade-offs. For trading, sales, or relationship-management candidates, expect a working conversation about market structure, customer segments, and how you would prioritize a book of business.
-
6
Technical and case rounds vary by function
Technical and case rounds vary by function. Software and infrastructure engineers should expect coding exercises (algorithms, data structures, low-latency design questions), systems-design discussions, and conversations about distributed systems, multicast networking, deterministic latency, and exchange order-book mechanics. Quants and index researchers face statistics, derivatives pricing, and methodology questions. Trading, sales, and product candidates work through market-structure cases or customer scenarios.
-
7
Final-round panels are typically a half-day virtual loop or an onsite in Chicago
Final-round panels are typically a half-day virtual loop or an onsite in Chicago, New York, London, or another regional hub depending on the role. Panels usually include the hiring manager, two to four peers from adjacent teams, and one cross-functional partner from compliance, product, or operations. Senior roles include a conversation with a department head or executive.
-
8
Cboe runs background checks, employment verification, education verification, an
Cboe runs background checks, employment verification, education verification, and FINRA fingerprinting where required by role, plus a U-4 process for any registered representative position. Total elapsed time from application to offer typically runs four to six weeks and can extend to eight for senior or international roles.
-
9
Negotiate compensation in writing once an offer is verbal
Negotiate compensation in writing once an offer is verbal. Cboe packages generally include base salary, target annual cash bonus tied to company and individual performance, restricted stock units (RSUs) for mid-level and senior roles, a 401(k) match in the U.S., and standard health and wellness benefits. Compensation for low-latency engineering and quantitative roles in Chicago is competitive with the proprietary trading firms (Citadel Securities, Jump Trading, IMC, Optiver, DRW) the company recruits against.
Resume Tips for Cboe Global Markets
Lead with exchange, ECN, dark-pool, market-maker, ATS, or clearing-house experie
Lead with exchange, ECN, dark-pool, market-maker, ATS, or clearing-house experience. Cboe rewards genuine market-structure expertise above almost any other signal. Any prior work at NYSE, Nasdaq, CME, ICE, LSE, IEX, MEMX, MIAX, BIDS, BlockCross, or major broker-dealer execution desks should be front and center, named explicitly, with the venue type clearly stated.
For engineering roles, name the protocols and stack
For engineering roles, name the protocols and stack. FIX 4.4 / 5.0 SP2, OUCH, ITCH, BOE, market-data multicast UDP, PIM-SM, ARP, kernel bypass (Solarflare/Onload, Mellanox VMA, DPDK), Linux real-time tuning (CPU pinning, IRQ steering, isolcpus), high-performance C++ (lock-free data structures, low-allocation patterns), low-GC Java, FPGA networking (Xilinx/AMD), and time synchronization (PTP, IEEE 1588) are the keywords matching engine, gateway, and market-data teams scan for.
For trading-systems engineers, quantify latency and throughput
For trading-systems engineers, quantify latency and throughput. p50, p95, p99, and tail latency in microseconds, messages per second, order rates, market-data fanout, deterministic jitter targets, and uptime against five-nines or six-nines SLAs are the currency. A bullet that reads 'reduced order-gateway p99 latency from 18 microseconds to 9 microseconds at 1.2M msgs/sec' will be read by every hiring manager.
For options and derivatives roles, demonstrate fluency with the Greeks, volatili
For options and derivatives roles, demonstrate fluency with the Greeks, volatility surface concepts, and risk metrics. Delta, gamma, vega, theta, rho, vanna, vomma, implied volatility, term structure, skew, and listed-option market-microstructure terms (NBBO, top-of-book, complex orders, COA, AIM, FLEX options) signal genuine exposure. For VIX or 0DTE work, mention the specific indices and methodology if relevant.
For markets, sales, and relationship-management roles, lead with broker-dealer a
For markets, sales, and relationship-management roles, lead with broker-dealer and asset-manager coverage and quantify the book. AUM or notional flow covered, number of accounts, products sold, and revenue or commission contribution are the metrics that get read. Coverage of market-makers, liquidity providers, hedge funds, and proprietary trading firms is differentiating versus generic institutional sales backgrounds.
For compliance, surveillance, and regulatory roles, cite the specific rule sets
For compliance, surveillance, and regulatory roles, cite the specific rule sets you have worked under: SEC Reg NMS, Reg ATS, Rule 605/606, Rule 611, Rule 613 (Consolidated Audit Trail), CFTC Part 38 and Part 40 for futures, FINRA Rules 5210 and 5320, EU MiFID II / MiFIR, MAR, FCA SYSC, and APAC equivalents. Names of surveillance platforms (Nasdaq SMARTS, Trillium SurveyorSuite, Eventus Validus) earn credibility.
For data and quant index research, lead with the methodology work
For data and quant index research, lead with the methodology work. Index construction, futures roll cost analysis, replication portfolios, factor research, and any contribution to a published methodology white paper or academic collaboration matter. Cboe takes its index intellectual property seriously and the index research team publishes regularly.
Keep the resume to one page if you have fewer than ten years of experience and t
Keep the resume to one page if you have fewer than ten years of experience and two pages otherwise. Phenom parses cleanly from single-column PDFs and DOCX with standard headings (Experience, Education, Skills). Avoid two-column layouts, photos, embedded graphics, and decorative tables, all of which degrade parser accuracy and disadvantage you against keyword matching.
Mirror the job-description language
Mirror the job-description language. If the posting says 'matching engine,' do not write 'order book core service.' If it says 'market data dissemination,' do not write 'tick distribution.' Phenom and the recruiter both score literal keyword overlap, so use Cboe's vocabulary first and your favorite synonyms second.
Mention any options-industry educational involvement honestly
Mention any options-industry educational involvement honestly. The Options Industry Council (OIC), CFA Institute derivatives content, Series 3 / Series 7 / Series 24 / Series 57 licenses, and FRM or PRM certifications are recognized signals. For Chicago candidates, MSFM or financial-engineering coursework from Illinois Tech, the University of Chicago, or Northwestern is a strong cultural fit cue.
ATS System: Phenom People (careers.cboe.com)
Cboe Global Markets uses Phenom People, an enterprise talent experience platform widely deployed at large financial-services firms, as its applicant tracking and candidate-experience layer. The career site at careers.cboe.com is a Phenom-rendered job board with role search, location and category filters, candidate accounts, resume parsing, application tracking, and AI-driven job recommendations based on the skills Phenom extracts from your profile and resume. After you upload a resume, Phenom parses it into structured fields (work history, education, skills) and pre-fills the application; you should review every parsed field and correct anything wrong before submitting. The system uses semantic and keyword matching against each job description to score candidates and surface them to the recruiting team, so resumes that mirror the job-description vocabulary perform measurably better than generic resumes. Phenom also runs a Talent Community feature; opting in is low-cost and useful because Cboe recruiters proactively source from the community for new openings. Job alerts, saved searches, and application status updates all flow through the candidate portal. The Phenom apply experience is meaningfully cleaner and faster than Workday or Oracle Recruiting, but it is just as keyword-driven, so do not assume the cleaner UX means a less mechanical screen.
- Use the exact technical and market-structure terms from the job description so Phenom's keyword matcher scores you correctly. Do not paraphrase product names, protocol names, regulation names, or system names.
- Upload a single-column PDF or DOCX resume with standard section headings (Experience, Education, Skills, Certifications). Two-column and graphic-heavy resumes parse poorly and degrade match scores.
- After Phenom parses your resume, review every extracted field manually. Pay particular attention to date formats, employer names, and the auto-extracted skill tags, which feed Phenom's downstream recommendations.
- Opt in to the Talent Community even if you are not applying immediately. Cboe recruiters actively source from it, and email alerts surface roles that may not appear at the top of search results.
- Maintain one Cboe candidate profile and reuse it across applications. Avoid creating duplicate accounts, which can confuse recruiters and split your application history.
- Apply early in a job's lifecycle. Phenom shows recruiters candidates in roughly the order they are scored and queued, and high-quality early applicants typically receive the first screening calls.
- Use the Skills field intentionally. Phenom recommends roles based on extracted skills, so explicitly listing the languages, protocols, asset classes, regulations, and tools you have real depth in increases relevant recommendations and recruiter visibility.
Interview Culture
Cboe interviews are professional, direct, and weighted toward depth in your craft.
What Cboe Global Markets Looks For
- Genuine market-structure expertise. Candidates who can explain the difference between a maker-taker fee model and a taker-maker fee model, why Reg NMS Rule 611 matters, or how complex order books interact with simple order books are visibly preferred over generic finance candidates.
- Intellectual honesty about what you know. Cboe interviewers will follow up on every claim and reward 'I do not know' over a confident wrong answer.
- Customer empathy for the buy-side, broker-dealers, market-makers, and retail brokerages that route order flow to Cboe venues. Even engineering candidates are evaluated on whether they understand who their work serves.
- For technology roles, deterministic, low-allocation, low-latency thinking. Garbage-collection awareness, allocation discipline, lock-free patterns, cache-line awareness, and respect for the operating system below the application all matter.
- Comfort with regulatory complexity. Cboe operates under SEC and CFTC oversight in the United States and a long list of regulators globally; candidates who recoil from compliance work do not thrive.
- Ability to operate across asset classes and time zones. Multi-product literacy (options, equities, futures, FX, indices) and willingness to coordinate with London, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Sydney, and Manila are real differentiators.
- Strong written communication. Internal post-mortems, change requests, regulatory filings, and customer communications are all written; sloppy writing is a real negative signal.
- Long-term mindset. Cboe values employees who plan to stay, build deep expertise in the franchise, and contribute across multiple product cycles rather than treat the role as a two-year resume stop.
- Coachability under public scrutiny. Cboe markets and the people who run them operate in front of regulators, the press, and the broader industry, and candidates who handle critique gracefully tend to land offers.
- Authentic interest in derivatives, volatility, and the VIX franchise. Saying 'I am interested in markets generally' is fine; saying 'I have been following the 0DTE growth and would love to work on the volatility products' is much stronger when it is true.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Cboe Global Markets actually do, and why does it matter?
How is Cboe different from CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE)?
Do I need options or derivatives expertise to get hired at Cboe in non-trading roles?
What does compensation look like for technology roles in Chicago?
Does Cboe have an internship or new-grad program?
What is the difference between the Chicago, New York, and Manila offices?
Does Cboe sponsor work visas in the United States?
What is the work-from-home policy at Cboe?
What changed when Fredric Tomczyk became CEO in September 2023?
Why does the VIX matter to Cboe's business?
How long does the Cboe interview process usually take?
What kinds of compliance and regulatory experience does Cboe value most?
Open Positions
Cboe Global Markets currently has 39 open positions.
Related Resources
Sources
- Cboe Global Markets - Careers —
- Cboe Global Markets - About Us —
- Cboe Global Markets - Investor Relations and Annual Report —
- Cboe Global Markets Inc. SEC Form 10-K (Annual Report) —
- Cboe Names Fredric J. Tomczyk Chief Executive Officer (Cboe press release, 2023) —
- Cboe CEO Edward Tilly Resigns Over Personal Relationships - Reuters (Sept 2023) —
- Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) - Methodology and White Paper —
- Cboe Completes Acquisition of Bats Global Markets (2017 announcement) —
- Cboe Completes Acquisition of NEO Exchange / Cboe Canada (2022) —
- Cboe Completes Acquisition of Chi-X Asia Pacific (2022) —
- Cboe Acquires BIDS Trading (2021) —
- Cboe Futures Exchange (CFE) Product Specifications —
- The Options Institute - Cboe Education —
- Cboe Global Markets - Glassdoor Reviews —
- Cboe Global Markets - LinkedIn Company Page —