Senior Software Engineer - DeFi

DRW•Chicago, IL

About The Position

DRW is a diversified trading firm with over 3 decades of experience bringing sophisticated technology and exceptional people together to operate in markets around the world. We value autonomy and the ability to quickly pivot to capture opportunities, so we operate using our own capital and trading at our own risk. Headquartered in Chicago with offices throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia, we trade a variety of asset classes including Fixed Income, ETFs, Equities, FX, Commodities and Energy across all major global markets. We have also leveraged our expertise and technology to expand into three non-traditional strategies: real estate, venture capital and cryptoassets. We operate with respect, curiosity and open minds. The people who thrive here share our belief that it’s not just what we do that matters–it's how we do it. DRW is a place of high expectations, integrity, innovation and a willingness to challenge consensus. We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join our Unified Platform (UP) team as we make a major push into decentralized finance. UP consolidates data and technologies into a comprehensive solution, accelerating time to market. Optimizing decision-making and research, our platform simplifies implementing new ideas, enhancing our competitive edge. The UP-Trade Operations team builds software that enables DRW's trading operations teams to manage our growing DeFi footprint. A big part of what makes this work interesting is figuring out where DeFi instruments map to traditional financial concepts, where they extend them, and where they are something entirely new. We need engineers who can reason about these protocols financially, not just technically, and build reliable systems around them at an institutional scale.

Requirements

Strong engineering fundamentals
Hands-on experience navigating the DeFi landscape
Hands-on experience with EVM internals, smart contract ABIs, and libraries like ethers.js or web3.js
Familiarity with DeFi protocols: AMMs (Uniswap), lending (Aave, Compound), options/structured products, or staking
Understanding of multi-chain architectures -- L1s, L2 rollups, bridging, and cross-chain data challenges
Experience with Oracle systems (Chainlink) or on-chain pricing
Ability to reason about DeFi protocols from a financial perspective, e.g. how different AMM designs affect pricing, how lending rates compare across protocols, or what distinguishes different stablecoin mechanisms
Multiple years of server-side development
Willingness to learn Clojure, one of the team's primary languages
Confident JVM knowledge
Working knowledge of Node.js/TypeScript
A solid understanding of micro-service architectures
Proficiency in domain-driven design and domain modeling
A good understanding of functional paradigms and type theory
Kubernetes, Docker, ArgoCD
PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQS, RabbitMQ
Linux, Ansible, Nginx, Git

Nice To Haves

Exposure to Solana or other non-EVM chains is a plus

Responsibilities

Building systems with a constant focus on testing, reliability, scalability, and maintainability
Designing, modeling, and programming in a variety of languages and technologies
Working on legacy code as well as greenfield development
Taking initiative and driving projects to completion
Learning and promoting new technologies with a focus on best practices
Providing on-call support as needed
Sometimes working alongside other developers on the same task