Senior / Staff Software Engineer — Algorithmic Execution Platform

Senior / Staff Software Engineer - Algorithmic Execution Platform

Chicago, New York City

Clear Street is modernizing the brokerage ecosystem. Founded in 2018, Clear Street is a diversified financial services firm replacing the legacy infrastructure used across capital markets.

We started from scratch by building a completely cloud-native clearing and custody system designed for today’s complex, global market. Our platform is fully integrated with central clearing houses and exchanges to support billions in trading volume per day. We’ve agonized about our data model abstractions, created horizontal scalability, and crafted thoughtful APIs. All so we can provide a best-in-class experience for our clients.

By combining highly-skilled product and engineering talent with seasoned finance professionals, we’re building the essentials to compete in today’s fast-paced markets.

The Team:
The Algorithmic Execution Services team builds Clear Street’s electronic trading platform, delivering best execution across equities, options, and futures in U.S. and international markets. We develop low-latency order routing, algorithmic strategies, smart order logic, and direct market access - with a relentless focus on performance, scalability, and real-time risk controls.

We are building the next generation of our execution infrastructure from the ground up. The goal is to replace fragmented, vendor-dependent solutions with a single, modular platform that is observable, data-driven, and designed to scale with our business and our clients. The near-term milestone is direct market access in production with institutional clients by end of 2026. The longer-term vision is a unified platform for multi-asset, multi-region electronic trading - with smart strategies, a research environment, and algorithmic execution across equities, options, futures, FX, crypto, and global markets all running on shared infrastructure.

This is a greenfield platform effort. We are not patching what exists - we are building what comes next.

The Role:
This is a core infrastructure role on a small, focused team, based hybrid (4 days in office) out of New York, NY or Lisle, IL. You will be one of the foundational engineers shaping and building our new execution platform - a low-latency, C++-based system with client-facing FIX connectivity, institutional-grade risk controls, and deep integration across U.S. exchanges and dark venues.

• Client-facing FIX gateway - design and harden the FIX acceptor that serves as the primary inbound order entry point for institutional clients; own the full order lifecycle including order entry, fills, ACKs, rejects, and outbound sequencing
• Market data infrastructure - build and maintain production-grade feed handlers for exchange protocols (ITCH, OUCH, binary) across major U.S. exchanges and ATSs, replacing legacy market data dependencies with proprietary, low-latency infrastructure
• Execution and venue connectivity - build and optimize the venue connectivity layer; own latency profiling and hot-path analysis from order receipt through exchange acknowledgment
• Pre-trade risk controls - architect and implement real-time risk checks with a clear understanding of where each check sits in the critical path; balance correctness guarantees with microsecond-level latency budgets
• Platform infrastructure - contribute to configuration and command & control architecture, normalized internal message representation, and audit-trail logging systems
• Algorithmic strategy migration - over time, help move existing algorithmic strategies off legacy infrastructure onto the new platform - component by component, with the current solution running until it is fully replaced

As the core platform stabilizes over the next 12-24 months, you will have the opportunity to contribute to a broader roadmap - including a research and backtesting environment, expansion into additional asset classes (options, futures, FX, crypto), and support for international markets including Europe and Canada. The platform is designed to support all of this from a shared execution layer. The engineers hired now will shape what that looks like.

What We Value:

• Engineers who are biased toward action and make sound tradeoffs with incomplete information
• Deep ownership — you care about correctness and performance well beyond your immediate scope
• Strong communication across engineering, trading, and operations
• A willingness to challenge assumptions and raise the bar on how we build

Requirements:

• 7+ years of experience building high-performance, low-latency systems in C++ in a production environment
• Deep knowledge of FIX protocol (4.2/4.4) and the full order lifecycle — entry, routing, execution, cancellation, and reporting
• Experience with exchange market data protocols (ITCH, OUCH, binary feed formats) and building production-grade feed handlers
• Strong understanding of low-latency architecture — kernel bypass, lock-free data structures, CPU affinity, memory layout, and hot-path profiling
• Experience with multicast messaging (Aeron, LBM, or equivalent publish/subscribe transport)
• Solid grasp of U.S. equity market structure: order types, Reg NMS, venue routing, lit and dark pools
• Comfortable working in Linux, including performance tuning at the OS level
• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related STEM field

Nice To Haves:

• Experience building algorithmic execution or SOR infrastructure at a broker-dealer, prop firm, or exchange
• Familiarity with options or futures execution infrastructure
• Experience with pre-trade risk system design — firm-level and account-level controls
• Knowledge of CAT reporting requirements and how they shape system design
• Experience building platforms designed to service multiple asset classes from a shared execution layer
• Exposure to international markets and cross-region system design
• Experience with fractionalization and/or internalization
• Proficiency in Python for internal tooling and test infrastructure
• Familiarity with containerization and Kubernetes-based deployment

We Offer:
The Base Salary Range for this role is $200,000 - $350,000. This range is representative of the starting base salaries for this role at Clear Street. Where a candidate falls in this 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 Clear Street’s total compensation. The range stated does not include other factors of total compensation such as bonuses or equity.

At Clear Street, we offer competitive compensation packages, company equity, 401k matching, gender neutral parental leave, and full medical, dental and vision insurance. In-office benefits include lunch stipends, fully stocked kitchens, happy hours, a great location, and amazing views.

Our top priority is our people. We’re continuously investing in a culture that promotes collaboration. We help each other through challenges and celebrate each other’s successes. We believe that modern workplaces succeed by virtue of having high-performance workforces that are diverse — in ideas, in cultures, and in experiences. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and put in the effort to make such a workplace a daily reality. #LI-Hybrid