Trading Automation Specialist

Optiver•Chicago, IL

7d•Onsite

About The Position

Optiver is seeking a Trading Automation Specialist responsible for the daily operations, automation, and continuous improvement of their market making activity in Chicago. This role involves trading, technology, and operational excellence, acting as a connective tissue between traders and systems. It offers a unique opportunity to build expertise across data, coding, and trading, identify personal strengths, and scale impact. The specialist will be expected to take ownership of critical workstreams and solve them in real time on the trading desk.

Requirements

3+ years of experience in trading operations, trading technology, quantitative finance, or a closely related field.
Bachelor’s degree in a STEM field (Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or related).
Strong programming skills in Python or similar languages, with experience building automation and tooling.
Familiarity with electronic trading systems, market microstructure, and the mechanics of market making.
Excellent analytical, quantitative, and problem-solving abilities.
Outstanding communication skills with a proven ability to work cross-functionally.

Responsibilities

Automate the desk by building workflows and tooling for traders, eliminating manual work and reducing operational risk.
Work with data by building pipelines and analytics to transform market and order-flow data into trading decisions.
Own reliability by taking end-to-end ownership of core trading automation systems, acting as an escalation point, and leading root-cause analysis.
Partner across the floor to translate operational insights into system improvements with traders, researchers, and engineers.
Find and scale personal edge by using breadth across data, code, and markets to set direction where impact is greatest.