Software Engineer (Entry-Level) - C++

Akuna Capital•Chicago, IL

About The Position

Akuna Capital is an innovative trading firm with a strong focus on collaboration, cutting-edge technology, data-driven solutions, and automation. We specialize in providing liquidity on a variety of exchanges across various asset classes, primarily as an options market maker. To do this successfully, we build and maintain our own low-latency technologies, including application frameworks, trading strategies, and mathematical models. Our Founding Partners first conceptualized Akuna in their hometown of Sydney, Australia. They opened the firm’s first office in 2011 in the heart of the derivatives industry and the options capital of the world – Chicago. Today, Akuna is proud to operate from additional offices around the world: Sydney, Shanghai, Singapore, and London. C++ software engineers at Akuna have the opportunity to work on a variety of high-performance systems that power the firm’s core business operations. Our engineers work on small-to-medium-sized teams that frequently interface with Quant and Trading, allowing them to build expertise in a specific domain area while maintaining broader exposure to the needs of their end-users. Akuna’s C++ systems are heavily multithreaded, asynchronous, and distributed by nature, which comes with a slew of challenges; our engineers are tasked with ensuring these systems are reliable, efficient, scalable, and flexible enough for even the most niche use cases. Entry-level engineers in particular are responsible for day-to-day upkeep of core systems, servicing lower-risk feature requests, and executing individual projects on behalf of their team’s stakeholders. Akuna is looking for software engineers who are motivated, can solve complex problems, and are willing to reach for creative solutions when faced with novel problems. We value innovation, hard work, and knowledge, and we want our engineers to make a direct impact on the firm. Whether you are interested in algorithms and data structures, concurrency, networking and protocols, performance tuning, data capture and analysis, mathematical modeling, hardware, or something else, there’s engaging work to be done.

Requirements

Pursuing a bachelor’s, master’s, or Ph.D. in a technical field (computer science/engineering, math, physics, or equivalent)
Graduating by August 2027
Legal authorization to work in the U.S. as of the first day of employment, including F-1 students using OPT or STEM
Experience programming in modern C++ (C++20 or later; C++23 preferred)
Experience with distributed systems
Experience with parallel processing
Experience with asynchronous architectures
Experience with networking or protocol encoding/decoding
Experience with lock-free data structures and algorithms
Experience with performance profiling (e.g. perf, gprof, vtune)
Experience with scripting, such as in Python or shell
Familiarity with standard debugging tools (e.g. GDB, Valgrind, address sanitizer)
The ability to effectively communicate with non-technical stakeholders in Quant and Trading to obtain requirements, workshop solutions, and implement agreed-upon roadmaps
The ability to react quickly and effectively to rapidly changing market conditions, including the ability to quickly and accurately respond and/or solve math and coding problems, is an essential function of the role
A passion for building complex systems from the ground up
The ability to collaborate with other developers of different backgrounds, specialties, and knowledge levels to collectively deliver cohesive solutions to non-trivial problems
An intrinsically motivated attitude and the ability to work independently
A strong sense of ownership, including a drive to fix bugs when they inevitably arise

Nice To Haves

Previous experience in finance or trading is not required.

Responsibilities

Day-to-day upkeep of core systems
Servicing lower-risk feature requests
Executing individual projects on behalf of their team’s stakeholders
Ensuring systems are reliable, efficient, scalable, and flexible
Communicating with non-technical stakeholders to obtain requirements, workshop solutions, and implement agreed-upon roadmaps
Reacting quickly and effectively to rapidly changing market conditions
Quickly and accurately responding and/or solving math and coding problems
Building complex systems from the ground up
Collaborating with other developers of different backgrounds, specialties, and knowledge levels to collectively deliver cohesive solutions to non-trivial problems
Working independently
Fixing bugs