Software Engineer, Production Platform at Aquatic Capital Management in Chicago

Job description

• At Aquatic, we are actively recruiting for a Software Engineer to join our Engineering team in Chicago. We are investing in the production platform that carries our research and trading systems into live markets, and we are doing it while the firm expands globally. This role sits at the center of that effort: building the deployment, build, and observability systems the rest of the firm runs on, and owning how well they behave in production.
• You will collaborate with researchers and engineers across Research, Execution, and Trading Operations. The work is hands-on, high-leverage, and visible: when the platform is good, everyone at the firm ships faster and sleeps better.

Responsibilities

• Ownership of the platform that moves code, models, and data from development into global live trading, with automated dependency resolution and safe, repeatable deployments.
• Own build and release tooling, including build pinning and approval, promotion workflows, and rollback paths that let engineers ship into production with confidence.
• Extend deployment orchestration and scheduling infrastructure across regions as we enter new markets, with regional parity as the default rather than the exception.
• Build observability into deployments and production services so engineers, researchers, and operations can see what is running, what changed, and what broke.
• Partner with Research and Trading Operations to replace manual operational processes with automation, eliminating toil at the source.
• Improve the reliability and operability of production systems: alerting, failure handling, fallback, and recovery.
• Set and hold engineering standards for the platform. Clean, maintainable Python, tested and documented, built to be supported by people who did not write it.

Requirements

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 4+ years of professional software development experience. We are open to a range of experience levels for the right engineer.
• Strong python and familiarity with Java and C++ and a track record of building production-grade systems.
• Experience building and operating distributed systems, deployment pipelines, or internal developer platforms.
• Familiarity with CI/CD, configuration generation and management, workload orchestration (Nomad, Kubernetes, or similar), and production debugging.
• Comfortable operating in production environments where uptime, latency, and correctness are of highest importance.
• Helpful but not required: exposure to trading systems, market data, or model lifecycle management in production.
• Strong bias for action
• Driven by accountability and internal urgency
• A builder's instinct for automation and toil elimination
• Desire to independently seek best solutions
• Preference for working in a team that focuses on delivering results aligned with Research and Development goals
• Comfortable providing and receiving actionable feedback in a collaborative team setting
• Motivated by an ambitious environment and driven colleagues

Skills

Required

• Python
• Java
• C++
• CI/CD
• Configuration generation and management
• Production debugging
• Deployment pipelines
• Internal developer platforms

Preferred

• Exposure to trading systems
• Market data
• Model lifecycle management in production

Benefits

• The base salary for this role is anticipated to be between $150,000 and $300,000, which is based on information at the time of posting. This position may also be eligible for additional forms of compensation, such as a discretionary bonus, and benefits. Discretionary bonus can be a significant portion of total compensation. Actual compensation for successful candidates will be carefully determined based on a number of factors, including their unique skills, qualifications and relevant experience.
• Benefits: For full-time employees, fully paid medical, dental, and vision for employees and dependents, competitive 401k plan, employer-paid life & disability insurance
• Perks: Wellness programs, casual dress, snacks, lunch, game room, team and company events
• Development: Open environment to maximize learning and knowledge sharing
• Time: Generous PTO, paid holidays, competitive paid caregiver leaves