Senior Software Engineer

Our Senior Software Engineers lead large technical projects, help set the direction for our trading infrastructure, and serve as role models within the organization.

Our software engineering teams leverage technology to solve a variety of difficult problems. Our trading strategies must respond to market events in microseconds or less, and we automatically price large, diverse sets of financial instruments with extremely low error tolerance. We continually refine, store, and analyze terabytes of data produced by market activity and our trading systems. Our user interfaces must present coherent, responsive real-time visualizations of market activity and system performance while providing intuitive control of a highly complex system. Our core systems must provide a stable, performant, and trusted foundation on which our systems are built.

Technology at Optiver:

At Optiver we pride ourselves on being real engineers, not just coders. Our engineers work closely with traders to identify the business problems we face and determine how they should be solved. We apply a disciplined and scientific approach. We engineer simple, well-architected solutions that meet the dynamic needs of our traders. Our passion is to solve problems which really matter to the business, and we take pride in the quality of our solutions.

Who we are:

Optiver is a tech-driven trading firm and leading global market maker. As one of the oldest market making institutions, we are a trusted partner of 70+ exchanges across the globe. Our mission is to constantly improve the market by injecting liquidity, providing accurate pricing, increasing transparency and acting as a stabilising force no matter the market conditions. With a focus on continuous improvement, we participate in the safeguarding of healthy and efficient markets for everyone who participates.

Optiver Chicago’s culture parallels the energetic city we’re immersed in. Home to the Chicago Board of Trade, Chicago Board Options Exchange, and Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Chicago has established itself as the trading capital of the US. Active on leading US exchanges, Optiver’s Chicago office trades a wide range of products from listed derivatives to cash equities, ETFs, bonds and foreign exchange.

What you’ll do:

• Establish vision and technical direction for major initiatives
• Design, develop, support, and maintain large portions of our trading infrastructure
• Ensure new and existing programs adhere to our coding, architectural, and operational standards
• Develop a deep understanding of trading and exchanges
• Collaborate deeply with traders, engineers, and researchers

What you'll need:

• Strong engineering instincts and a deep understanding of computer science fundamentals
• Experience writing software in C++, C#, C, and/or Python
• Innovative, big-picture thinking grounded in real-world pragmatism
• Desire to continuously improve in a rapidly evolving environment
• Readiness to set technical direction, promote engineering principles, and do the right thing

What you’ll get:

• Work alongside best-in-class professionals from over 40 different countries.
• Performance based bonus structure that is unmatched anywhere in the industry. We combine our profits across desks, teams and offices into a global profit pool fostering a truly collaborative environment to work in.
• Ownership over initiatives that directly solve business problems.  

Alongside this you will get great other benefits such as 25 paid vacation days and market holidays, fully paid commuting expenses and health insurance, daily breakfast and lunch, training opportunities, 401(k) match up to 50% and charitable match opportunities, regular social events and clubs, and many more.

At Optiver, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. Optiver recruits, employs, trains, compensates and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental disability, or other legally protected characteristics.

Please note, this is for experienced applications only. If you're interested in graduate and intern positions, please instead apply to our 2024 Graduate Software Engineer or 2024 Software Engineer Intern opportunities.