Sr. Software Engineer II (Exchange Connectivity)

What you'll do:

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Sr. Software Engineer II with deep expertise in exchange connectivity and high-performance trading systems. This is a high-impact role focused on interfacing directly with multiple exchanges, handling real-time market data, order routing, and trade processing with ultra-low latency and high reliability. You’ll be part of the Exchange Connectivity team, owning the software that communicates directly with exchanges worldwide.

In this role you will:

• Design, implement and support exchange connectivity components across multiple asset classes and protocols
• Develop and maintain market data handlers, order gateways, and contract/instrument reference data processors
• Work closely with the Trading OMS, FCM and infrastructure teams
• Optimize for low latency, high throughput, and fault tolerance across all trading and data flows

What you'll need:

• 8+ years working in the trading industry ideally with C++ or Rust
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field
• Proven experience building exchange connectivity and market data systems across multiple venues
• Strong understanding of network programming, multicast UDP, TCP, asynchronous I/O
• Deep knowledge of trading industry specifications (FIX, SBE, Market Data formats, etc)
• Strong communication and collaboration skills; able to mentor others and drive change across teams
• Experience supporting live trading systems in production — diagnosing connectivity issues, latency anomalies, and failover events
• Strong sense of ownership, including the ability to deliver robust, tested, and observable software that operates in mission-critical environments

Bonus points for:

• Capital Markets experience
• Performance profiling and tuning — using perf, VTune, Wireshark, or similar tools to analyze and reduce latency
• Low-latency systems development — deep experience optimizing for performance, throughput, and determinism in production trading environments
• Market data handling — building and maintaining real-time feed handlers for exchange protocols (ITCH, OUCH, FIX/FAST, CME MDP, Eurex ETI, etc)
• Exchange APIs and connectivity — familiarity with U.S. and international exchange protocols (CME, ICE, Eurex, CBOE, Binance, etc)
• Linux systems — expert-level knowledge of performance tuning, kernel parameters, NUMA, and clock synchronization (PTP)
• Distributed systems and fault tolerance — building resilient systems that handle failover, recovery, and state synchronization
• Expertise in concurrency, multi-threading, and asynchronous programming
• Familiarity with low-latency networking (TCP/UDP), kernel bypass, or FPGA acceleration
• Understanding of monitoring, observability, and metrics for real-time systems
• Experience deploying and monitoring distributed systems on Google Cloud Platform (GKE, Pub/Sub, Cloud Functions) or similar environments
• Strong communication skills and ability to work cross-functionally across several teams
• Self-starter with the ability to drive projects from concept to deployment in a fast-paced environment

Compensation:

The salary range for this role will be $160,000 - $190,000 USD. In addition, this position will also receive an annual target bonus of 12%. Bonus pay at NinjaTrader is based on individual performance (50%) as well as company/team performance (50%). Salary and bonus earnings are only two components of the total compensation package offered by NinjaTrader. NinjaTrader offers a 401K plan through ADP under which the company will match up to 3.5% of employee contributions. Annual paid time off allowance accrues at a rate of 18 days per year (some positions may qualify for more) plus seven paid holidays.

Location:

This role is based in Chicago, IL. We are not open to remote candidates for this role.

Hybrid:

For Chicago-based employees, we follow a hybrid work schedule: In-office Tuesday through Thursday, with remote work on Mondays and Fridays.

In addition to these weekly remote days, we offer:

• 20 additional flex remote days annually
• 5 Company Wide Office-Optional weeks tied to major holidays