Director of Engineering, Trading Platforms
What you'll do:NinjaTrader is modernizing the core of our high-throughput trading stack. We are seeking a Director of Engineering to own the end-to-end technical strategy and execution for our server-side trading platform-the matching engines, market-data services, risk controls, and order-routing pipelines that power millions of trades daily. You will lead multiple backend engineers, shape our cloud-native architecture, and ensure our systems remain low-latency, highly concurrent, and horizontally scalable as we grow.In this role you will:• Manage multiple engineering managers, fostering a high-performing organization and cultivating a culture of continuous improvement, quality, and reliability• Attract, retain, and grow top-tier talent to build exceptional engineering teams that deliver delightful trading experiences• Define and evolve the technical roadmap for the trading platform (matching, risk, market data, connectivity, clearing)• Work closely with the CTO and Chief Architect to shape and refine the overarching engineering strategy• Partner with SRE to enforce "everything-as-code" infrastructure (Terraform) and progressive deployment pipelines (FluxCD)• Champion OpenTelemetry-first, vendor-agnostic observability that scales bolthires-effectively• Collaborate with Product, Risk, Compliance, and Customer Success to translate trading-business objectives into robust backend capabilitiesWhat you'll need:• 15+ years of total software engineering experience, with 5+ years leading multiple backend or platform teams in a trading setup• Proven track record building and operating low-latency, high-concurrency trading, market-data, or high-frequency messaging systems (equities, futures, FX, crypto, or similar)• Deep knowledge of performance-oriented programming on the JVM (Scala, Java, Kotlin) or C++/Rust/Go, plus comfort reviewing code in any modern language• Mastery of event-driven, partitioned, and stateful services (e.g., Kafka/Pub-Sub, Aeron, Redis, in-memory caches)• Kubernetes/GKE experience and a strong automation-first mindset using bolthires/CD tools like Argo CD and GitHub Actions• Demonstrated success implementing observability at scale using OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, and log pipelines with bolthires-efficiency in mind• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills; comfortable defending architectural trade-offs to executive, product, and regulatory audiencesBonus points for:• Experience integrating with clearing firms, FIX gateways, and risk engines• Familiarity with Scala, Akka/Pekko actor systems, and reactive-streams backpressure patterns• Experience with bolthires Cloud (GKE, Cloud Logging, BigQuery)Compensation:The salary range for this role will be $200,000.00 - $250,000.00 USD.In addition, this position will also receive an annual bolthires bonus of 15%. 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.Additional details on our total compensation package and benefits are listed below. Location:This role is based in Chicago, IL. * There may be remote flexibility for exceptional candidates in the following states: California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Washington D.C., Wisconsin, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. 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 Apply tot his job