UIUC Cohort - Year Long Technology Internships (Summer 2025 - Spring 2026)

We are looking for motivated and talented students who want to help us solve some of the most complex challenges in financial technology. Technology teams at CME write and maintain ultra low-latency electronic trading platforms, risk management systems, and front-end trading interfaces, all of which are central to CME’s business. These year long intern positions support the infrastructure, app teams, and data critical to the above work. We are focused on designing, building, and deploying customer focused solutions with passion and precision.

CME’s Technology Internship Program offers students opportunities to learn more about CME’s business, our role in the financial industry, and the types of technology that keep our markets running. Students will develop both their technical skills and expand their network with access to industry experts, while working alongside other talented and ambitious students with a passion for FinTech.

Year long interns will join in one of three areas/roles: 

• Platform Engineer (Infrastructure focused)
• Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) 
• Data Engineer

Minimum qualifications for all areas/roles:

• Currently pursuing a Bachelor’s or Master's degree at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign with an anticipated graduation no earlier than Spring 2026
• Studying Computer Science or a related field or relevant experience
• Experience writing code in Java or Python
• A passion for problem solving
• Detail oriented
• Experience with Cloud Technologies

This focused year round internship will begin in Summer 2025 at 40 hours a week in a hybrid role based in our Chicago office. Interns will then shift to part time (about 16 hours a week) and remote work in Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 at UIUC.

The summer program includes numerous opportunities to network with peers from across the country during a summer full of experiences such as excursions to enjoy Chicago traditions, trading and coding challenges with prizes, lunch and learn speaker series, and other opportunities for professional development.

The Platform Engineer Role

As a platform intern, you will be working alongside CME's platform engineers to help create reliable processes and systems. This will be an infrastructure focused role with opportunities to learn about a variety of technologies, spanning fields such as automation, CI/CD, DevOps, and monitoring.

Focus:

• System Design
• Research and Proof of Concept
• Automation
• DevOps 
• Google Cloud, Kubernetes, Infrastructure

Bonus qualifications:

• Proficiency in Python or bash shell (linux)
• Previous technical experience
• Experience with UNIX/Linux
• Experience with powershell(windows)
• Experience with Google Cloud, Kubernetes, Cloud Infrastructure

The SRE (Site Reliability Engineer) Role

As an SRE intern, you’ll be working alongside CME’s site reliability engineers helping to create reliable processes and systems. This will be a development focused role with opportunities to learn about a variety of technologies, spanning fields such as big data, web development, automation and CI/CD, devops, and monitoring.

Focus:

• Application Development
• System Design
• Research and Proof of Concept
• DevOps and Cloud Migration
• Automation

Bonus qualifications:

• Proficiency in Java
• Previous technical experience
• Experience with UNIX/Linux
• Experience with powershell(windows)
• Experience with JavaScript, SQL, or R

The Data Engineer Role

A crucial role in CME's Cloud data transformation, the data engineer will be responsible for analyzing and building new pipelines, extracting data from multiple sources utilizing different technologies such as Hadoop, Spark, Beam or other tools to convert raw data into usable information for business insights. 

Focus:

• Data assembly, extraction, transformation, & loading
• Building Data Pipelines & Analytical Tools
• Utilizing GCP Services & SQL Technologies
• Analysis and actionable insights
• Identifying, designing and implementing internal process improvements
• Maintain clear and up-to-date documentation related to data systems and standard operating procedures.

Bonus Qualifications:

• Knowledge of or experience with data engineering or data science
• Understanding of software development methodologies and best practices, including version control (e.g., Git) and CI/CD pipelines
• Experience in in data technologies, such as relational databases, data warehousing, big data platforms (e.g., Hadoop, Spark), data integration (e.g., Informatica or Data Fusion), and cloud services
• Experience with GCP data services (BigQuery; Dataflow; Data Fusion; Dataproc; Cloud Composer; Pub/Sub; Google Cloud Storage)
• Knowledge of AI and/or ML tools
• Familiarity with the BI tools such as Looker or Tableau
• Google Associate Cloud Engineer or Data Engineer certification
• Experience in automation and scripting

Students applying to these positions must be enrolled as students at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. These internship positions are available for individuals’ needing sponsorship. Individuals will specify which focus area(s) they are most interested in at a later time during the selection process.

CME Group: Where Futures are Made

CME Group is the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace. But who we are goes deeper than that. Here, you can impact markets worldwide. Transform industries. And build a career by shaping tomorrow. We invest in your success and you own it – all while working alongside a team of leading experts who inspire you in ways big and small. Problem solvers, difference makers, trailblazers. Those are our people. And we’re looking for more.

CME Group is the world's leading derivatives marketplace. But who we are goes deeper than that. Here, you can impact markets worldwide. Transform industries. And build a career shaping tomorrow. We invest in your success and you own it, all while working alongside a team of leading experts who inspire you in ways big and small. Problem solvers, difference makers, trailblazers. Those are our people. And we're looking for more.

Important Notice: Recruitment fraud is on the rise, with scammers using misleading promises of job offers and interviews to solicit money and personal information from job seekers. CME Group adheres to established procedures designed to maintain trust, confidence and security throughout our recruitment process.

Learn more here: https://www.cmegroup.com/careers/files/recruitment-fraud-notice.pdf