Senior Low-Latency C++ Engineer - Core Engineering
ssg · New York, USA ·
- Seniority
- Senior
- Category
- Software engineering
- Experience
- 5+ years
Human Intuition. Machine Intelligence. Relentless Exploration.
Exceptional trading emerges where human intuition meets frictionless experimentation. Our platform and processes enable traders to rapidly investigate ideas, identify emergent patterns, and convert insights into live strategies. This synthesis creates a flywheel of discovery — the key to our pursuit of excellence.
The Role
We are looking for a driven, experienced C++ Software Engineer to join our Core Engineering team. You will be the architect and steward of the low-latency, high-throughput systems that power our live trading. Your mission is to build the highly performant, fault-tolerant foundations that enable us to execute strategies efficiently and capture opportunities in real-time. You will have broad ownership over system architecture, performance optimization, and execution logic, while partnering directly with our exceptional quantitative researchers and trading desks.
The Team
The Core Engineering team is responsible for the firm's entire trading infrastructure. On our lean team of highly skilled engineers, we view engineering holistically rather than functionally. You will not be restricted to a narrow component; you will own critical projects that span execution, market data, and strategy implementation. This end-to-end exposure provides the opportunity to directly impact our bottom line while collaborating with seasoned mentors and brilliant peers in a fast-paced, hands-on environment.
Responsibilities
- Design and Own Trading Systems: Take strategic ownership of critical trading infrastructure, driving projects from initial whiteboard design all the way through to deployment and production support.
- Engineer for Extreme Performance: Optimize systems that process and react to real-time data streams. Evolve our performance posture by leveraging hardware-level optimizations, kernel bypass, and deep memory management to ensure microsecond-level execution.
- Build Execution Logic: Develop, refine, and maintain order matching systems, execution logic, and major venue gateways across multiple asset classes.
- Empower the Flywheel of Discovery: Work side-by-side with quantitative researchers and traders. Build robust test harnesses and data analysis pipelines to help the business rapidly iterate on new signals and strategies.
- Drive Architectural Excellence: Ensure our codebase scales efficiently by making pragmatic, forward-looking architectural decisions and championing modern C++ best practices.
The Tech Stack
We use the right tool for the job. In this role, you will heavily utilize:
- Languages: Primarily C++23 and Python for scripting, test harnesses, and data analysis.
- Infrastructure: Linux, with a deep focus on OS internals and memory management.
- Networking: Low-latency networking protocols and hardware (e.g., Solarflare, kernel bypass).
You Bring
Requirements
- Experience: 5+ years of relevant software engineering experience with clear progression in system complexity and architectural decision-making.
- Modern C++ Expertise: Expertise in modern C++ on Linux, with a deep understanding of memory management, concurrency, and templates.
- Onsite Collaboration: A willingness to work onsite in our office 4 days a week.
Strongly Preferred
- Industry Experience: Background in finance, electronic trading, or market-making.
- Market Fluency: Breadth across multiple asset classes OR knowledge of global market nuances (beyond US Equities).
Extras
- Domain Knowledge: Experience with order matching, execution logic, and major venue gateways.
- Hardware & Systems Optimization: Exposure to distributed systems, kernel bypass, or hardware-level optimizations, as well as experience optimizing systems that process and react to real-time data streams.
- Database Experience: Experience with relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL).
- End-to-End Delivery: A track record of taking systems from whiteboard design all the way through to deployment and production support.
- Python Proficiency: Familiarity with Python, particularly for building test harnesses, data analysis, or interacting with quantitative researchers.
Ideal Profile
- Technical Curiosity & Pragmatic Ownership: You have a relentless drive to understand how things work under the hood, but you balance that with a hands-on, pragmatic approach to delivering commercial solutions.
- Attention to Detail: In trading, accuracy and reliability are paramount. You approach every engineering problem with a focus on uncompromising reliability and handling edge cases gracefully.
- Collaborative Orientation: You are energized by working closely within a team, communicating clearly across research and trading desks, and focusing on collective success.
- Driven by Impact: You take deep satisfaction in seeing your work have a direct, measurable effect on our P&L and operations.
We Offer
The Base Salary Range is $175,000 - $250,000. This range is representative of the starting base salaries for this role at Summit Securities Group. Where a candidate falls within the range will be based on job-related factors such as relevant experience, skills, and location. This range represents Base Salary only, which is just one element of our total compensation. The range stated does not include other factors of total compensation such as bonuses.
We offer competitive compensation packages, 401k matching, gender neutral parental leave, and full medical, dental and vision insurance. We believe that working together in person helps us solve complex challenges. We require employees to be in the office 4 days per week. In-office benefits include lunch stipends, fully stocked kitchens, happy hours, a great location, and amazing colleagues.
Our top priority is our people. We invest in a culture that promotes togetherness, helping each other through challenges and celebrating each other's successes. We believe that modern workplaces succeed by having diverse high-performance workforces — in ideas, in cultures, and in experiences. We put in the effort to make such a workplace a daily reality and are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.