How to Apply to Cboe Global Markets

13 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 39 open positions

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

Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (NYSE: CBOE) is a Chicago-headquartered global derivatives and securities exchange operator and one of the most influential institutions in modern market structure. Founded in 1973 as the Chicago Board Options Exchange, Cboe was the first regulated US options exchange and is widely credited with creating the listed options industry as it exists today. The first standardized call option contract in history was traded in Cboe's original Chicago trading floor on April 26, 1973. From that single innovation grew an entire global asset class. The modern company took shape through a series of transformational acquisitions. In 2017, Cboe acquired Bats Global Markets for approximately $3.4 billion, picking up the BZX, BYX, EDGA, and EDGX US equities exchanges, the Cboe Futures Exchange (CFE) infrastructure, and Bats's European multilateral trading facility, which became the foundation of Cboe Europe. The combined company rebranded from CBOE Holdings to Cboe Global Markets to reflect its broader equities and international footprint. In 2021, Cboe purchased BIDS Trading, a leading institutional block-trading alternative trading system. In 2022, it acquired NEO Exchange in Canada (now Cboe Canada) and the Asia-Pacific assets of Chi-X, becoming Cboe Australia and Cboe Japan. Today Cboe operates options markets (the flagship Cboe Options Exchange home to SPX, VIX, and Russell 2000 options); US cash equities through BZX, BYX, EDGA, and EDGX; the Cboe Futures Exchange (CFE), best known for VIX futures; Cboe FX, a top institutional spot foreign-exchange platform; Cboe Europe Equities and Cboe Europe Derivatives (Amsterdam); Cboe Canada; Cboe Australia; and Cboe Japan. The company also runs Cboe Clear Europe and Cboe Clear Digital and licenses the proprietary indices that make its derivatives franchise distinctive. The Cboe Volatility Index, known universally as the VIX, is the company's signature intellectual property. Calculated from real-time SPX option prices and developed in partnership with academic researchers and the index methodology team Cboe maintains alongside S&P, the VIX is the world's most-followed gauge of expected equity-market volatility and the financial press's so-called fear gauge. VIX futures and options are among the most actively traded volatility products on earth and are a substantial driver of Cboe's Derivatives Markets revenue. Cboe Labs continues to extend the franchise with shorter-dated VIX products and zero-days-to-expiration (0DTE) options on SPX, which have grown explosively since 2022. Cboe reported approximately $2.0 billion of net revenue in 2023 and continued to post record results into 2024, with Derivatives Markets, Cash and Spot Markets, and Data Vantage as its three reporting segments. The company employs roughly 1,650 people across offices in Chicago (headquarters), New York, London, Amsterdam, Singapore, Tokyo, Sydney, Toronto, and a back-office operation in Manila, Philippines. Leadership underwent a significant change in late 2023. Long-serving CEO Edward Tilly resigned in September 2023 after the board determined he had failed to disclose personal relationships with colleagues in violation of company policy. Fredric (Fred) Tomczyk, a Cboe board member and former CEO of TD Ameritrade, was named CEO and assumed the role permanently shortly thereafter. The Tomczyk era has emphasized operational discipline, integration of the international acquisitions, and a sharper focus on the derivatives franchise.

Application Process

  1. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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

recommended

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.

recommended

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.

recommended

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.

recommended

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.

recommended

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.

recommended

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.

recommended

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.

recommended

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.

recommended

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.

recommended

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.



Interview Culture

Cboe interviews are professional, direct, and weighted toward depth in your craft.

The Chicago trading-floor heritage shows up in the conversational style: interviewers expect you to know your numbers, defend your design choices, and be candid about what you do and do not know. They are less impressed by polish than by precision. If you guess on a technical answer they will catch it; if you say 'I don't know, but here is how I would find out,' they will respect it. For engineering candidates, panels are stacked with senior practitioners. Matching-engine, gateway, market-data, and risk-systems engineers will dig into your actual code, your latency methodology, your understanding of the operating system underneath your application, and your taste in trade-offs. Whiteboard or shared-editor coding is normal. So is a deep-dive into a system you built, where the interviewer will keep pulling on threads until they find the limit of your knowledge. For trading, sales, product, and markets roles, expect a working conversation rather than a behavioral checklist. You may be asked to walk through how you would price-discover a new product, how you would prioritize a coverage book, how you would handle a customer escalation about a trade-through, or how you would think about competing for order flow against a rival venue. The interviewer wants to hear how you reason, not a memorized answer. Culturally, Cboe is more energetic and more options-literate than the larger Big Board exchanges (NYSE, Nasdaq) and less aggressive than the proprietary trading firms it competes with for engineering talent (Citadel Securities, Jump, DRW, IMC, Optiver). Many employees have spent a decade or longer at the company, and there is an unusually strong internal culture of options education through the Options Institute and the Options Industry Council. Hybrid in-office work is the norm at headquarters, with most teams expected on-site at least three days per week.

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?
Cboe operates regulated exchanges and trading venues for options, US equities, futures, foreign exchange, and international cash equities. It is the original home of listed options trading in the United States and the proprietor of the VIX, the most-followed measure of expected equity-market volatility in the world. Its derivatives franchise (SPX options, VIX options and futures, 0DTE products) is structurally important to how institutional investors hedge equity risk, which is why the company has outsized influence relative to its roughly $2 billion of revenue.
How is Cboe different from CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE)?
All three are major U.S.-listed exchange operators, but they specialize differently. Cboe is the dominant listed-equity-options venue (SPX, VIX, single-name options) and runs additional businesses in U.S. equities (BZX, BYX, EDGA, EDGX), VIX futures (CFE), FX, and international exchanges in Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan. CME Group dominates interest-rate, equity-index (E-mini S&P 500), agricultural, and cryptocurrency futures, plus much of metals. ICE owns the New York Stock Exchange and is the global leader in energy futures (Brent crude), as well as fixed-income data and mortgage technology. If you want to work on listed options or volatility products, Cboe is the obvious choice; if you want fixed-income futures, you go to CME; if you want NYSE or energy markets, you go to ICE.
Do I need options or derivatives expertise to get hired at Cboe in non-trading roles?
No, but it helps a lot. Engineering, infrastructure, data, finance, HR, and legal roles do not require pre-existing options expertise on day one, and the company invests heavily in internal education through the Options Institute. That said, candidates who can demonstrate genuine curiosity about the products, who follow VIX and the broader volatility landscape, and who can speak intelligently about why exchanges matter consistently outperform candidates who treat Cboe as just another large employer.
What does compensation look like for technology roles in Chicago?
Cboe compensates competitively for the Chicago trading-tech talent market, which means it is benchmarked against Citadel Securities, Jump Trading, IMC, Optiver, DRW, and the larger high-frequency proprietary trading firms. Total compensation packages include base salary, an annual cash bonus tied to company and individual performance, RSU equity for mid-level and senior engineers, 401(k) match, and standard health benefits. Cboe rarely matches the highest proprietary trading firm bonuses for the same role, but offers more career stability, more diverse business exposure, and a meaningful equity component as a publicly traded company. Specific bands vary by role, level, and team; ask the recruiter directly during the screen.
Does Cboe have an internship or new-grad program?
Yes. Cboe runs a Summer Internship Program for undergraduate and graduate students, primarily based in Chicago, with roles across technology, markets, finance, data, and corporate functions. Interns are matched to teams, given a meaningful project, and paired with mentors. The program is a primary pipeline for full-time new-grad hiring, particularly into technology, the index research team, and rotational programs. Recruiting typically opens in early autumn for the following summer; check careers.cboe.com and target-school career events for the current cycle.
What is the difference between the Chicago, New York, and Manila offices?
Chicago is the corporate headquarters and the center of gravity for trading technology, options markets, derivatives product, index research, and senior leadership. New York hosts a meaningful sales, relationship-management, and equities-markets presence given proximity to broker-dealer and asset-manager clients. London and Amsterdam house the Cboe Europe Equities and Derivatives operations, plus regulatory, sales, and engineering staff. Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore, and Toronto run the regional exchanges acquired from Chi-X and NEO. Manila is a back-office and operations hub supporting global functions; it is a real career destination for operations, finance, and technology professionals in the Philippines, but it is structured differently from the front-office hubs.
Does Cboe sponsor work visas in the United States?
Yes for technology, quantitative, and certain specialized markets and data roles, the company has historically sponsored H-1B and similar work visas. Sponsorship for general business or operations roles is more conservative and depends heavily on the specific function and the candidate's profile. Always confirm sponsorship policy with the recruiter on the first call rather than assuming based on the job posting.
What is the work-from-home policy at Cboe?
Cboe operates on a hybrid model, with most teams expected in the office a majority of the work week (typically three days at minimum) and remote-eligible flexibility on the remaining days. Specific policies vary by team, role, and office; some functions tied to live-market operations (NOC, market operations, surveillance) require more on-site presence. Fully remote roles exist but are the exception rather than the norm.
What changed when Fredric Tomczyk became CEO in September 2023?
Edward Tilly resigned in September 2023 after the board determined he had not properly disclosed personal relationships with colleagues, a notable corporate-governance event for the company. Fred Tomczyk, the former CEO of TD Ameritrade and a Cboe board member, was named CEO and confirmed in the role permanently shortly after. The Tomczyk era has been characterized by a sharper focus on operational discipline, deeper integration of the international acquisitions (Cboe Europe, Cboe Canada, Cboe Australia, Cboe Japan), and continued investment in the derivatives franchise (zero-days-to-expiration options, shorter-dated VIX products). Internally the tone has been described as steadier and more institutional than the prior era.
Why does the VIX matter to Cboe's business?
The VIX is Cboe's signature intellectual property and the foundation of one of its most valuable derivatives franchises. VIX options and VIX futures (traded on CFE) are heavily used by institutional investors to hedge equity-volatility risk and to express views on market stress, and they are reliable revenue contributors across market regimes because volatility itself becomes more valuable to trade when markets are uncertain. The success of the VIX has also enabled adjacent products including shorter-dated VIX derivatives, the VVIX (volatility of VIX), and the broader 0DTE SPX options franchise. From a recruiting standpoint, candidates who understand the VIX methodology, the volatility surface, and how dealers hedge variance risk consistently signal stronger fit for derivatives, index research, and quant roles.
How long does the Cboe interview process usually take?
From recruiter screen to written offer, plan on roughly four to six weeks for most roles, with senior or international roles extending to eight weeks. Background checks, employment verification, and (for registered roles) FINRA fingerprinting and the U-4 process can add another two to four weeks before your start date. Stay responsive to email and scheduling requests; the company moves at the pace of its slowest candidate when scheduling panels.
What kinds of compliance and regulatory experience does Cboe value most?
Cboe operates under dual SEC and CFTC oversight in the United States and is supervised by FCA, AFM, IIROC (now CIRO), ASIC, FSA, and other regulators internationally. The most directly transferable experience comes from other exchanges, ATS operators, broker-dealers, futures commission merchants, and large asset managers. Specific rule fluency in Reg NMS, Reg ATS, Rule 605/606, the Consolidated Audit Trail (Rule 613), CFTC Part 38 and Part 40 for futures, FINRA Rules 5210 and 5320, MiFID II, MiFIR, and MAR is highly valued. Surveillance technology experience (Nasdaq SMARTS, Trillium SurveyorSuite, Eventus Validus) is a differentiator for surveillance roles.

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Sources

  1. Cboe Global Markets - Careers
  2. Cboe Global Markets - About Us
  3. Cboe Global Markets - Investor Relations and Annual Report
  4. Cboe Global Markets Inc. SEC Form 10-K (Annual Report)
  5. Cboe Names Fredric J. Tomczyk Chief Executive Officer (Cboe press release, 2023)
  6. Cboe CEO Edward Tilly Resigns Over Personal Relationships - Reuters (Sept 2023)
  7. Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) - Methodology and White Paper
  8. Cboe Completes Acquisition of Bats Global Markets (2017 announcement)
  9. Cboe Completes Acquisition of NEO Exchange / Cboe Canada (2022)
  10. Cboe Completes Acquisition of Chi-X Asia Pacific (2022)
  11. Cboe Acquires BIDS Trading (2021)
  12. Cboe Futures Exchange (CFE) Product Specifications
  13. The Options Institute - Cboe Education
  14. Cboe Global Markets - Glassdoor Reviews
  15. Cboe Global Markets - LinkedIn Company Page