Sr. Manager, Software Engineering - API

Remote Position - must reside Florida, Texas, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, Utah or Wisconsin

Who We Are
TradeStation is the home of those born to trade. As an online brokerage firm and trading ecosystem, we are focused on delivering the ultimate trading experience for active traders and institutions. We continuously push the boundaries of whats possible, encourage out-of-the-box thinking, and relentlessly search for like-minded innovators.

At TradeStation, we are building an AI-First culture. We expect team members to embrace AI as a core part of their daily workflow, whether that’s using AI to accelerate development, enhance decision‑making, improve client outcomes, or streamline internal processes. We hire, grow, and promote people who can harness AI responsibly and creatively. We treat AI as a partner in problem‑solving, not just a tool; following our governance standards to ensure AI is used ethically, securely, and transparently. If you join us, you’re joining a culture where AI is how we work.

Are you ready to make yourself at home?

What We Are Looking For
We are looking for a Sr. Manager, Software Engineering to lead the build‑out of TradeStations next‑generation API platform. This is a pivotal role: our APIs are the front door for every client application, third‑party integration, and AI‑powered experience we deliver. This role will own the strategy and execution to establish TradeStation as the leader in trading APIs — creating the developer experience that drives adoption, increases trade revenue, and enables an ecosystem of innovators to build on our platform.

The team will design, build, and operate API products spanning REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and emerging protocols like MCP (Model Context Protocol) to power AI agents and agentic workflows. Internally, this role will drive the adoption of gRPC as our high‑performance service communication standard. Externally, this role will champion a world‑class developer experience — from API design and documentation to SDKs, sandbox environments, and developer portal capabilities. This Sr. Manager will partner closely with Product Management, who owns the product roadmap and prioritization, while the Sr. Manager owns the technical vision, architecture, and engineering execution.

The Sr. Manager, Software Engineering, will work with group Architects and cross‑functional partners to drive technical innovation and optimize your teams performance in a fast‑moving business and technical environment. This role will provide leadership for Technical Leads and software development teams, participate in technology management planning sessions, coordinate execution with the enterprise architecture vision, and communicate with executive leadership. The successful candidate will develop a deep understanding of API consumers — both internal teams and external developers — to drive design decisions, execute product roadmaps, and act as the evangelist for TradeStations API platform. This role offers a unique opportunity to shape a critical growth vector for the company while leading a talented group of highly dedicated engineers.

What You’ll Be Doing

Serve as an inspirational and outcome‑driven leader — execution and follow‑up is everything

Own the technical strategy and technical roadmap for TradeStations API platform, spanning REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and AI‑native protocols (MCP), partnering with Product Management on product strategy and prioritization

Drive API‑first design principles across the organization, ensuring consistency, discoverability, and developer ergonomics across all API surfaces

Foster a developer‑experience (DX) mindset: treat external and internal API consumers as customers, obsess over documentation quality, onboarding friction, and time‑to‑first‑call

Lead the adoption of gRPC as the internal high‑performance service protocol, establishing patterns, tooling, and best practices for teams across the organization

Define and enforce API governance standards including versioning, deprecation policies, rate limiting, authentication/authorization patterns, and SLA management

Collaborate closely with Product Management, Business, and executive stakeholders to translate business objectives into technical execution plans that drive trade revenue and platform adoption

Manage cloud‑native infrastructure strategy on AWS and Kubernetes, optimizing for reliability, performance, and cost efficiency

Champion psychological safety within the team environment, modeling it and insisting on it as a core value

Select, assess, develop, mentor, manage, and retain top technical talent

Effectively manage people, including planning, assigning, and directing work; evaluating performance, addressing complaints, and resolving problems

Ensure knowledge sharing among the team to avoid information silos and address key‑staff risks

Continuously refine development processes to improve overall performance and reduce friction to delivery

Mange and maintain Agile practices and track team performance based on outcomes

Clear roadblocks for teams to ensure delivery focus

Participate in business planning and communicate technical knowledge of vision for both current and future API products

The Skills You Bring

Superior understanding and execution of organizational goals and objectives

Strong presentation skills, excellent written and oral communication skills

Strong technical depth and raw intellectual ability

Deep expertise in API design, architecture, and lifecycle management across multiple paradigms (REST, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSockets)

Strong understanding of API gateway and management platforms (e.g., Kong, Apigee, AWS API Gateway) and service mesh technologies

Hands‑on understanding of Protocol Buffers, OpenAPI/Swagger specifications, and schema‑first API design

Strong knowledge of cloud‑native architectures, AWS, Kubernetes, and container orchestration

Solid understanding of authentication and authorization patterns for APIs (OAuth 2.0, API keys, JWT, mTLS)

Strong understanding of Agile development methodologies, DevOps, continuous delivery, and related concepts

Experience with resource allocation and personnel management

Must be a team player that is assertive, passionate, and goal‑oriented

Solid organization and prioritization skills

Ability to work in a fast‑paced environment with the ability to pivot and adapt as needed

Strong understanding of software design principles and patterns

Expertise and demonstrated experience in systems design, development, implementation, and deployment processes

Demonstrated ability to make decisions regarding necessary team size and composition

Strong pattern recognition abilities to identify abstractions and processes that drive team success

Development background with proficiency in modern programming languages commonly used for API development (Go, Rust, TypeScript/Node.js, Python); hands‑on coding is not required but the ability to evaluate technical tradeoffs and review architecture decisions is essential

Experience in the brokerage or financial services industry, especially building APIs for trading or market data preferred

Experience designing and operating developer portals, SDKs, and API documentation platforms preferred

Knowledge of AI/ML integration patterns for APIs, including function‑calling interfaces, streaming responses, and agent‑to‑API communication (e.g., MCP, tool‑use protocols) preferred

Experience with high‑throughput, low‑latency API systems serving real‑time financial data preferred

Understanding of regulatory requirements for API access controls, data distribution, and audit logging in financial services preferred

Track record of growing API adoption and measuring developer experience through metrics (TTFB, error rates, adoption funnels) preferred

Experience with infrastructure as code and automating deployments in cloud‑native environments preferred

Familiarity with service mesh architectures (Istio, Linkerd) and observability stacks for distributed API systems preferred

Minimum Qualifications

BS in Computer Science or related technical discipline, or equivalent work experience

7+ years of relevant team management and leadership experience in high‑performance, business‑critical environments

What We Offer

Collaborative work environment

Yearly bonus

Comprehensive benefits for you and your family starting Day 1

Unlimited Paid Time Off

Flexible working environment

TradeStation Account employee benefits, as well as full access to trading education materials

Pay Range (US) $174-189K (Countries outside of the US have differing ranges in accordance with local labor markets)

TradeStation provides equal employment opportunities to current and prospective employees, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, age, pregnancy, disability, handicap, citizenship, veteran or marital status, or any other legally recognized status entitled to protection under federal, state, or local anti-discrimination laws.

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