Title: C++ Low Latency Engineer
Location: New York, onsite
Experience: 4+ years of commercial experience
Compensation: $600,000 to $1,200,000+ total
The firm
A tier one proprietary trading firm, trading its own capital across equities, futures, options and FX in global markets. Engineering is not a support function here. The trading system is the product, and the people who build it are paid accordingly.
The role
You will own latency critical components of the trading stack. That means the software path from an exchange packet hitting the NIC to an order going back out, and everything that has to happen in between without adding microseconds. This is a senior seat. You get real ownership from week one, direct access to the traders using your systems, and the hardware budget to do the job properly.
What you will do
- Design, build and optimise low latency C++ services on Linux in the live trading path
- Drive tick to trade performance through profiling, benchmarking and hardware aware design
- Build and maintain exchange connectivity, market data feed handlers and order entry gateways
- Own the infrastructure that measures latency, so decisions are made on numbers rather than instinct
- Partner with traders, quant researchers and FPGA engineers to take strategies from idea to production
- Set the technical bar for how the team writes performance critical code
What you will need
- 4 to 10 years of production C++, with several of those years in a latency sensitive domain such as trading, networking, exchanges, games, embedded or HPC
- Strong modern C++ (17 or 20) and deep Linux systems knowledge
- Practical understanding of CPU and memory behaviour, including cache hierarchy, false sharing, memory ordering and NUMA
- Fluency with profiling and performance tooling (perf, VTune, flame graphs, hardware counters)
- Solid grasp of networking fundamentals, TCP/UDP, multicast and how packets actually move
- A track record of shipping systems you optimised yourself, with measurable before and after
- A computer science, engineering, maths or physics background from a strong school
Bonus points
- Kernel bypass work (ef_vi, DPDK, OpenOnload) or kernel and driver level development
- Exposure to FPGA or hardware accelerated trading paths
- Prior HFT, market making or exchange connectivity experience
- Competitive programming or olympiad results (ICPC, IOI, IMO, Codeforces, USACO)
Compensation and benefits
Base salary plus discretionary performance bonus, with total compensation from $600,000 to $1,200,000+ depending on experience and impact. Full benefits, catered meals, relocation support and visa sponsorship where needed.
Process
Intro call, technical screen focused on C++ and systems, then an onsite covering low level C++, systems design and latency reasoning. Expect around four to six weeks from first conversation to signed contract.