Senior Software Engineer - Low Latency (Core Java)

Job Title: Senior Software Engineer – Low Latency (Core Java)
Location: Chicago, IL or New York, NY – Hybrid (candidates must be local to one of these locations and willing to work onsite 2 days per week)
Duration & Type: 6-Month Contract (Potential for Extension)
Compensation & Benefits: Competitive W2 hourly rate ($70-77/hr), Access to Healthcare, Dental, and Vision Insurance Plan of Choice, and 401K

Summary
Chamberlain Advisors is seeking a  Senior Software Engineer – Low Latency (Core Java) for our direct client in the financial services industry. This consultant will join a highly specialized engineering team supporting one of the organization's mission-critical electronic trading platforms responsible for processing thousands of streaming market data updates, quotes, and trade events every second. The platform is built as a suite of smaller, Java-based microservices that are highly latency sensitive.This is  not a traditional backend Java development role. The ideal candidate will possess deep expertise in  Core Java, low latency systems, concurrent programming, JVM optimization, Linux performance engineering, and production support . The successful consultant will work within a mature, high-performance trading platform where minimizing latency, maximizing throughput, maintaining reliability, and supporting production systems are critical to the business.
In addition to maintaining and optimizing an existing enterprise platform, this engineer will help modernize development workflows through the adoption of  AI-powered software engineering tools . 
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What You Will Be Accountable For

• Support and enhance a mission-critical low latency electronic trading platform that processes high-volume streaming market data and trading activity.
• Act as a self-starter who can independently read, understand, and navigate the existing codebase and established workflows — particularly around backend trading and market data processing — with minimal ramp-up time.
• Maintain and optimize an established Core Java codebase consisting of complex business workflows and numerous application modules developed over several years.
• Analyze existing application architecture and quickly understand business workflows to diagnose and resolve production issues.
• Optimize application performance by reducing latency, increasing throughput, and improving CPU and memory utilization.
• Design, develop, and optimize highly efficient Java components with a focus on concurrency, scalability, and system reliability.
• Troubleshoot complex production issues through root cause analysis, performance profiling, debugging, and system diagnostics.
• Perform dependency upgrades, library maintenance, and technical debt remediation while ensuring backward compatibility across the platform.
• Participate in architecture discussions and recommend improvements that balance performance, maintainability, fault tolerance, scalability, and reliability.
• Develop new feature enhancements while supporting ongoing platform modernization initiatives.
• Utilize AI-assisted development tools, including Gemini CLI, Gemini ADK, AI agents, and similar technologies, to improve developer productivity, accelerate code analysis, automate workflows, and assist with bug investigation.
• Support software deployments and production releases while ensuring system stability and operational excellence.
• Collaborate closely with engineering leadership and cross-functional teams to continuously improve platform performance and developer efficiency.

What Qualifications You Need

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Economics, Mathematics, or a related field preferred
• Minimum of 5 years of professional Core Java development experience in enterprise software environments.
• Demonstrated experience building, maintaining, or supporting low latency, high-performance, or high-throughput applications.
• Prior hands-on experience with backend trading systems, particularly market data processing, strongly preferred.
• Most recent role or project must clearly demonstrate hands-on Core Java development and low latency systems experience.
• Strong understanding of Core Java and advanced object-oriented programming principles.
• Deep expertise in multi-threading, concurrent programming, lock-free programming, thread synchronization, thread pools, concurrent collections, and shared memory concepts.
• Strong knowledge of JVM internals, including Garbage Collection optimization, Object pooling, Memory allocation, Primitive specialization, Performance tuning
• Experience evaluating algorithms and data structures for execution speed, scalability, and efficiency.
• Advanced knowledge of Linux operating systems, operating system behavior, hardware utilization, CPU scheduling, and thread management.
• Experience optimizing applications through: Performance profiling, Micro-benchmarking, JVM profiling
• JProfiler or similar profiling tools
• Strong troubleshooting and production support experience, including Root Cause Analysis (RCA), Performance investigation, Log analysis, Debugging, Incident resolution, Production issue diagnosis
• Experience supporting complex legacy applications while maintaining stability and backward compatibility.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to quickly understand large, existing codebases.
• This is a Core Java-focused role — not a Spring, React, SQL, or C++ role. Deep, hands-on Core Java fundamentals and strong problem-solving ability are essential and will be closely evaluated during the interview process.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills within Agile engineering teams

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience within financial services, electronic trading, exchange technology, market data, or risk management platforms.
• Understanding of trading workflows, market data distribution, pricing engines, risk controls, and financial messaging.
• Experience with AI-assisted software development tools, including Gemini, Gemini CLI, Gemini ADK, AI coding assistants, AI agents
• Experience with containerized environments, including Docker, Docker Swarm
• Experience with: Cloud SQL, MongoDB, Firebase
• Familiarity with dependency management, application modernization, and enterprise software lifecycle management.

About the Client:
Mixing powerful thinking and cutting-edge technology, our client is where the world comes to manage risk. Offering the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes. They have created a marketplace for buyers and sellers bringing together individuals, companies, and institutions that need to manage risk. Our client works to serve as the counterparty to every trade that happens in our markets, to protect the integrity of our markets, and to virtually eliminate third-party credit risk. They are more than a marketplace, they are a team of groundbreakers, problem solvers, and difference makers.

Why Work with Chamberlain?
Chamberlain Advisors is a veteran-owned business that provides human capital solutions across a wide range of industries and engagement types. Chamberlain candidates benefit from our unique hiring and interviewing process which has been designed to increase the likelihood that they will be successful in their job searches. This is achieved through our 5-step recruitment process, ensuring a top-of-the-line candidate experience. Find out what makes us different; apply to Chamberlain today.

Equal Opportunity Employer
Chamberlain Advisors provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, Chamberlain Advisors complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

Chamberlain Advisors expressly prohibits any form of workplace harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status. Improper interference with the ability of Chamberlain Advisors’ employees to perform their job duties may result in discipline up to and including discharge.

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