Senior / Staff Software Engineer — Algorithmic Execution Platform

Clear Street•Chicago, NY

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

Clear Street is hiring a Senior / Staff Software Engineer for its Algorithmic Execution Services team. The team is building a greenfield, low-latency electronic trading platform to deliver best execution across equities, options, and futures in U.S. and international markets. The platform is intended to replace fragmented, vendor-dependent solutions with a modular, observable, data-driven system that can scale with the business and its clients. A near-term milestone is production direct market access for institutional clients by the end of 2026; the longer-term vision is a shared, multi-asset and multi-region execution platform. This is a core infrastructure role on a small, focused team. The engineer will help shape and build a C++ platform with client-facing FIX connectivity, institutional-grade risk controls, and deep integration with U.S. exchanges and dark venues. The role is hybrid, based in New York, NY or Lisle, IL, with four days in the office. As the platform stabilizes over the next 12–24 months, the engineer may contribute to a research and backtesting environment, additional asset classes—including options, futures, FX, and crypto—and international market support, including Europe and Canada.

Requirements

At least 7 years of experience building high-performance, low-latency systems in C++ in a production environment.
Deep knowledge of FIX 4.2/4.4 and the full order lifecycle, including entry, routing, execution, cancellation, and reporting.
Experience with exchange market-data protocols such as ITCH, OUCH, and binary feed formats, and building production-grade feed handlers.
Strong understanding of low-latency architecture, including kernel bypass, lock-free data structures, CPU affinity, memory layout, and hot-path profiling.
Experience with multicast messaging such as Aeron, LBM, or an equivalent publish/subscribe transport.
Solid grasp of U.S. equity market structure, including order types, Reg NMS, venue routing, and lit and dark pools.
Comfort working in Linux, including performance tuning at the operating-system level.
Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related STEM field.

Nice To Haves

Experience building algorithmic execution or smart order routing infrastructure at a broker-dealer, prop firm, or exchange.
Familiarity with options or futures execution infrastructure.
Experience designing pre-trade risk systems, including firm-level and account-level controls.
Knowledge of CAT reporting requirements and their effect on system design.
Experience building platforms designed to serve multiple asset classes from a shared execution layer.
Exposure to international markets and cross-region system design.
Experience with fractionalization and/or internalization.
Proficiency in Python for internal tooling and test infrastructure.
Familiarity with containerization and Kubernetes-based deployment.

Responsibilities

Design and harden the client-facing FIX acceptor serving as the primary inbound order-entry point for institutional clients.
Own the full order lifecycle, including order entry, fills, acknowledgments, rejects, and outbound sequencing.
Build and maintain production-grade market-data feed handlers for exchange protocols, including ITCH, OUCH, and binary formats, across major U.S. exchanges and ATSs.
Build and optimize venue connectivity, and own latency profiling and hot-path analysis from order receipt through exchange acknowledgment.
Architect and implement real-time pre-trade risk checks, balancing correctness guarantees with microsecond-level latency budgets.
Contribute to configuration and command-and-control architecture, normalized internal message representation, and audit-trail logging systems.
Help migrate existing algorithmic strategies from legacy infrastructure to the new platform, component by component, while the legacy solution continues running until fully replaced.
As the platform stabilizes, contribute to the broader roadmap, including research and backtesting, additional asset classes, and international market support.