Lead Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)
About The Position
Optimal Market Technologies is a FINRA-registered broker-dealer with an innovative platform of wholesale options and execution solutions designed to meet the needs of today’s dynamic market participants. Optimal can quickly and seamlessly enhance its platform, adapt to regulatory changes, and offer a more efficient implementation that scales as clients grow. Optimal is disrupting the US Options Wholesale landscape by introducing a Competition for Order Flow model through which market makers compete for retail flow on our platform based on best execution quality. Additional offerings include an Institutional Alternative Trading System (ATS) for discreet execution and price improvement and Execution Services for institutional-grade routing and algorithmic execution designed to balance price capture, speed, and market impact across trading objectives. This is an opportunity to work for a fintech start-up and to be an integral part of growing a broker-dealer from the ground up. As a small, hardworking team, we pride ourselves on our entrepreneurial culture and cross-team collaboration. We recently raised funding from several strategic partners and are in a very exciting stage of growth.
Requirements
- Strong scripting and automation skills.
- Strong hands-on Linux and network administration.
- Expertise with Infrastructure as Code (we are open on which tools).
- Experience using AI tools, ideally Claude Code.
- A track record owning production support and incident response.
- Experience managing and developing technical staff.
- The ability to bring structure, standards, and strategy to a function as it grows and matures.
- Strong communication; effective with senior stakeholders and a small team.
Nice To Haves
- Experience at a start-up, or building a new line or function inside a larger firm; comfortable under resource constraints and automation-first by instinct.
- Experience in real-time critical systems.
- Familiarity with any of: FIX Protocol, PostgreSQL, middleware (ideally AERON), observability and monitoring tooling.
- Microsoft Azure, including Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD).
- Vendor management.
Responsibilities
- Own how production runs across colocation and the cloud: deployment, capacity, and failover.
- Build and lead the systems administration function: mentor existing staff, set how the function works, and hire as we grow.
- Set and publish the engineering standards and strategy for how we run production.
- Hands-on Linux and network administration; automate routine work through Infrastructure as Code.
- Manage vendors and service agreements; advise on build-vs-contract-out.
- Own infrastructure security: hardening, access control, recoverable backups, and security incident response.
- Assist first-line production support, reducing reliance on the development team.
- Be accountable for production stability: track what breaks and why, and turn repeat firefighting into automation that prevents it.
- Own incident response, on-call, and post-incident review; coverage is market-hours plus a support rotation.
- Own recovery runbooks, and recovery drills.
- Automate client self-service for common issues and access to their own data, reducing manual support work.
- Partner with the development team on deployments, and on performance tracking and capacity planning.
Benefits
- Equal opportunity employer
- Celebrate diversity
- Inclusive environment for all employees
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
