Sr. Software Engineer II, Exchange Connectivity (C++)

As a Sr. Software Engineer II focused on Exchange Connectivity at NinjaTrader, you own the software that communicates directly with exchanges worldwide. This high-impact role sits at the core of a leading retail trading platform serving over 2 million users, handling real-time market data, order routing, and trade processing with low latency and high reliability across multiple asset classes and protocols.

What you'll do

• Design, implement, and support exchange connectivity components across multiple asset classes and protocols
• Develop and maintain market data handlers, order gateways, and contract/instrument reference data processors
• Create APIs to expose exchange services to the broader organization via REST, WebSocket, event bus, or other mechanisms
• Collaborate closely with the Trading OMS, FCM, and infrastructure teams
• Optimize for low latency, high throughput, and fault tolerance across all trading and data flows

What you bring

• 8+ years of experience in the trading industry, ideally with C++ or Rust
• A Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field
• Proven experience building exchange connectivity and market data systems across multiple venues
• Strong understanding of network programming, multicast UDP, TCP, and asynchronous I/O
• Deep knowledge of trading industry specifications such as FIX, SBE, and market data formats
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, including the ability to mentor others and drive change across teams
• Experience supporting live trading systems in production, diagnosing connectivity issues, latency anomalies, and failover events
• A strong sense of ownership, with the ability to deliver robust, tested, and observable software in mission-critical environments

Nice to have

• Capital markets experience
• Performance profiling and tuning using perf, VTune, Wireshark, or similar tools to analyze and reduce latency
• Low-latency systems development with deep experience optimizing for performance, throughput, and determinism in production trading environments
• Building and maintaining real-time feed handlers for exchange protocols such as ITCH, OUCH, FIX/FAST, CME MDP, Eurex ETI
• Familiarity with U.S. and international exchange APIs and connectivity protocols including CME, ICE, Eurex, CBOE, and Binance
• Expert-level Linux knowledge, including performance tuning, kernel parameters, NUMA, and clock synchronization (PTP)
• Building resilient distributed systems that handle failover, recovery, and state synchronization
• Expertise in concurrency, multi-threading, and asynchronous programming
• Familiarity with IBM MQ for exchange data transfer
• Experience with low-latency networking, kernel bypass, or FPGA acceleration

What we offer

• Salary of $140,000-$190,000 USD plus an annual target bonus of 12% (based 50% on individual performance and 50% on company/team performance)
• 401(k) plan with a 3.5% company match
• 18 days of annual paid time off plus 7 paid holidays
• Hybrid work schedule for Chicago-based employees: in-office Tuesday through Thursday, remote on Mondays and Fridays, plus 20 additional flex remote days annually and 5 company-wide office-optional weeks tied to major holidays
• Paid parental bonding leave
• Health, vision, and dental coverage
• Life and disability insurance covered 100% by NinjaTrader
• 1 service day annually

About NinjaTrader

NinjaTrader is an industry-leading retail trading platform and futures broker serving over 2 million users worldwide. Founded in 2003, the company is the number one rated futures brokerage globally and provides award-winning software and brokerage services for traders across financial markets.