Engineering Manager, Trading Platform

Summary

Topstep is looking for an Engineering Manager to lead a team within Trading Platform , the organization that builds and runs TopstepX. The platform spans order flow and execution, market data, and the services and integrations behind them — real-time systems thousands of funded traders rely on every day, where availability, performance, and correctness matter. This is a people-leadership role: you'll be accountable for your team's reliability, quality, and delivery, and for the health and day-to-day running of the team itself — partnering with senior engineers, other engineering leads, Product, and operations. Occasional hands-on work is welcome but isn't expected.

Key Responsibilities

• Run the Team: set direction and standards, set the hiring bar and run the interview process to keep the team well-staffed, plan capacity, and shape how it operates day to day.
• Lead and Develop the Team: run 1:1s, real-time feedback, and performance reviews; coach engineers toward individualized growth and address performance issues early; build a culture of psychological safety, transparency, agency, and high standards.
• Drive Reliability and Operational Excellence: be accountable for the availability, performance, and resilience of the team's systems and for its engineering process, on-call health, incident follow-through, and observability and tooling (APM, tracing, synthetic/health checks).
• Drive Delivery: be accountable for the team's delivery cadence and outcomes, and influence the roadmap to include the technical-investment and reliability work the systems need.
• Partner across the Org: collaborate as a peer with the team's senior engineers and other engineering leads; work with Product, peer Engineering Managers, and operations and infrastructure partners; and keep leadership informed on progress, risks, and trade-offs.

Required Qualifications and Key Competencies

• 7 + years of software engineering experience, including production systems, integrations, and operations.
• 2 + years of engineering management experience — hiring, setting direction, coaching, and developing engineers across levels (with clear examples of their growth), and shaping how a team operates and delivers.
• A track record of delivering complex technical work at quality, balancing feature delivery against reliability and technical investment.
• Experience leading teams that own production systems — on-call, incident response, and reliability.
• A track record of building inclusive, collaborative cultures grounded in psychological safety, agency, and continuous learning.
• Technical credibility to guide architecture and trade-off decisions for backend and distributed systems — ideally high-availability, real-time, or event-driven services and API integrations.
• Hands-on background with .NET/C# and distributed systems, plus AWS and containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Excellent communication across technical and non-technical audiences; able to advocate for the team's needs and work well with peers across engineering and the business.
• A data-informed approach to team health, delivery, and reliability, with good judgment about what to measure.
• Comfortable leading through shifting priorities and balancing the team's capacity against what the business needs.

Preferred

• Trading, fintech, or other regulated financial environments — futures or trading-platform experience is a plus.
• High-availability, low-latency, or real-time systems.
• Microservices and real-time messaging (e.g., WebSocket/SignalR).
• Cloud operations / infrastructure and on-call.
• CI/CD tooling (e.g., Argo CD, GitHub Actions).

Company Culture & Perks

• Topstep is an engaging working environment which ranges from fully remote to hybrid. We foster a culture of collaboration with cameras on during meetings and a robust Slack environment for communication.
• Seven Company-paid Holidays and generous Family Leave. Paid time off is front-loaded.
• Competitive 401(k) matching, health, dental, and vision insurance is offered for full time employees.
• Vacations are encouraged with a bonus for taking 5 consecutive days. Employee referrals are bonused. Topstep offers a food and groceries budget and contributes towards health and wellness.

New Hire Base Salary Range

• $190,000 - $230,000.
• Bonus: This position is eligible for a performance-based bonus as provided by the plan terms and governing documents.
• The compensation offered will take into account internal compensation structure and may vary depending on the candidate's geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience among other factors.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Topstep is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where all employees and applicants are valued. All qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or veteran status, in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws.

Interested in the role? Apply today with your resume!

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Notice of Use of Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment and Hiring: Notice Pursuant to 775 ILCS 5/2-102(L). Topstep LLC uses artificial intelligence ("AI") in connection with its recruitment and hiring process. Examples include, but are not limited to, AI tools used to improve job descriptions, generate interview questions, draft communications, assist with scheduling, and source candidates, as well as AI features built into third-party platforms such as LinkedIn, Indeed, and Glassdoor. Topstep will not use AI that has the effect of subjecting employees or applicants to discrimination on the basis of any protected class under the Illinois Human Rights Act.

The collection, use, and handling of your data provided in response to this job posting is described further in our Privacy Policy. If you are a California resident, please review our California Notice at Collection.