Staff Software Engineer (Institutional, FCM)

As a Staff Software Engineer on Coinbase's Institutional FCM (Futures Commission Merchant) team, you'll be a hands-on technical anchor across the entire FCM lifecycle: market data, order entry and routing, settlement and money movement, back office reporting, and the in-house risk and liquidation system. You'll help lead a major replatforming onto next-gen architecture and reduce legacy vendor dependencies, re-architecting a regulated trading platform from the inside with the ownership of a startup and the reach of Coinbase.

What you'll do

• Own design and architecture across the FCM core, from market data and order routing through settlement, reporting, and risk
• Drive the next-gen replatforming and reduce legacy vendor dependencies while raising stability and reliability
• Set the technical bar through code, design reviews, and standards, and pay down the technical debt that matters most
• Partner across pods such as execution, risk, and lifecycle and cross-functionally with Product, CFM Risk and Ops, Finance, and Compliance to deliver correct, auditable systems
• Mentor engineers across the team and act as a force multiplier, elevating code quality and architectural rigor

What you bring

• 8+ years of backend engineering experience with demonstrated ownership of complex, production-grade distributed systems
• Direct FCM or derivatives experience with hands-on ownership of one or more parts of the futures trade lifecycle such as settlement, clearing, margin or risk, order entry or routing, market data, or back office and books and records
• Deep proficiency in a modern backend language, with Go preferred, Java, or similar, and event-driven, high-availability architectures
• Experience in a regulated or financial environment such as CFTC or NFA where correctness, auditability, and reliability are critical
• A track record delivering end-to-end work, including scoping, architecture, implementation, monitoring, and iteration, including replatforming or migrating off legacy systems, while still coding hands-on
• The ability to utilize generative AI responsibly, maintaining human oversight to deliver business-ready outputs and drive measurable improvements in workflow efficiency, cost, and quality

Nice to have

• Ion XTP or comparable exchange platform experience

What we offer

• Annual base salary of $218,025 to $256,500 USD, varying by location
• Equity and bonus eligibility
• Benefits including medical, dental, vision, and 401(k)
• Remote-first work with quarterly in-person working sessions called "surges"

About Coinbase

Coinbase is building the future of regulated derivatives as part of the Institutional Everything Exchange. Coinbase Financial Markets (CFM) is their CFTC-regulated Futures Commission Merchant, enabling retail and institutional clients to trade and clear US futures and options.