Senior Backend Manager

Mesirow•Chicago, IL

1d•$150,000 - $175,000

About The Position

Mesirow Financial is an independent, employee-owned firm founded in 1937, specializing in investment, risk management, and advisory services. The Senior Backend Engineer will build, modernize, and evolve systems supporting Investment Management applications, using strong engineering fundamentals, cloud-native architecture, AI-assisted development, and DevOps practices to deliver high-quality software reliably. The role designs and maintains backend components, leads application modernization and system architecture, integrates third-party products and financial platforms, and improves the reliability, security, scalability, and operational efficiency of applications. It also contributes to release automation, production support, proofs of concept including AI-enabled workflows, and mentoring junior developers. The position collaborates with business stakeholders and technology teams to turn requirements into practical solutions and manages project work plans as priorities change.

Requirements

At least 7 years of professional experience with C# and the Microsoft .NET stack, including .NET Framework and modern .NET, and Visual Studio or a related IDE.
Strong experience building RESTful Web APIs and backend services.
Hands-on experience designing, deploying, and operating applications on Microsoft Azure, such as App Service, Functions, Azure SQL, Service Bus, and Key Vault.
Advanced SQL Server and T-SQL skills, including stored procedures and performance tuning.
Experience with Entity Framework and/or a micro-ORM such as Dapper.
Solid object-oriented fundamentals, working knowledge of design and architecture patterns, and ability to create well-designed, reusable components.
Experience writing unit tests with mocking frameworks and building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines with automated build, test, and deploy processes; source control and branching strategies such as Git/Azure DevOps; and release management.
Knowledge of secure coding standards and techniques for web applications and APIs, including secure handling of sensitive financial data.
Hands-on experience using AI coding tools for software engineering tasks, sound judgment about whether to trust, verify, or reject AI output, and awareness of secure AI-tool use.
Working knowledge of distributed and microservice architecture concepts, including service boundaries, API design, and asynchronous messaging.
Experience developing in Agile/Scrum teams.
Excellent analytical and math skills.
Ability to work on multiple projects with minimal supervision and meet tight deadlines.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including translating business requirements into technical solutions and explaining complex information to technical and business audiences at all levels.
Bachelor's or Associate degree in an IT discipline, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Creativity and strong attention to detail.
Exceptional customer service skills and professionalism with a diverse group of business users.
Positive, productive team-player attitude.
Genuine desire to keep learning as AI tooling and engineering practices evolve.

Nice To Haves

Experience with SSIS and SSRS.
Hands-on experience with Claude Code specifically.
Extensive experience designing, building, and operating microservice-based systems at scale.
Experience modernizing legacy .NET applications toward cloud-native and managed Azure services.
Experience integrating with investment platforms and market data or trading systems such as Bloomberg, GTSS, DTCC, FX Connect, or ProtoColl, or a background in investment management or financial systems.
Experience with Docker and infrastructure-as-code such as Terraform, Bicep, or ARM.
Experience with monitoring, logging, and observability tooling.
Familiarity with building or integrating LLM-powered features, prompt design, or agent-based workflows.
Familiarity with front-end frameworks such as Angular or React, or Node.js, sufficient to collaborate across the stack.
Microsoft development certifications.
Experience supporting legacy ColdFusion applications.

Responsibilities

Design, develop, and maintain key backend components of Investment Management applications.
Drive application modernization, including refactoring legacy applications, reducing technical debt, and moving appropriate workloads toward cloud-native and managed Azure services.
Promote automated testing, secure coding, CI/CD, observability, and performance optimization, and own application reliability and maintainability throughout the software lifecycle.
Collaborate with business stakeholders, product owners, and technology teams to translate business requirements into scalable solutions.
Lead architecture and design of system implementations using proven patterns and best practices, including microservices where appropriate.
Implement and customize solutions and integrate third-party products and market data or trading platforms.
Enhance and maintain applications across .NET, T-SQL, and SSIS/SSRS.
Use AI coding tools to accelerate design, implementation, testing, code review, refactoring, and documentation while ensuring the quality and security of delivered work.
Build and improve release automation and infrastructure-as-code, participate in releases, and provide ongoing production support.
Build proofs of concept, including AI-enabled workflows, that can be used across the enterprise.
Diagnose and resolve complex issues, including designing and implementing workarounds when needed.
Mentor and guide junior developers, including on responsible and effective use of AI tools.
Create and execute project work plans, revising them as needs change.