Lead Software Engineer - $600k base

Sharpe Search; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 250,000 - 400,000; Full time

Job summary

Sharpe Search is building a self-improving hedge fund powered by thousands of machine learning models. The role owns the entire technical surface—from data ingestion to AI-driven research platforms and live trading pipelines—requiring extreme ownership and a track record of durable, scalable systems.

You will work directly with founders to elevate the engineering bar, eliminate complexity, and optimize alpha per engineer in a high-equity environment.

Qualifications

• 7+ years engineering at top-tier quant firms with production ownership.
• Deep systems knowledge across the stack and Python fluency.
• Experience with ML at scale and equity trading systems is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Own the data platform that ingests the world’s information.
• Own the research platform quants and AI systems.
• Own the trading pipeline that turns the Meta Model into live positions.
• Set engineering bar and decide what to build vs. buy vs. ignore.

Skills

7+ years engineering experience

Deep systems knowledge

Python fluency

Excellent communication

Extreme ownership

ML at scale

Tools

Python

System languages

Job description

An elite, high-leverage quant firm is building a self-improving hedge fund powered by thousands of machine learning models—increasingly designed and refined by AI itself. This is already how the fund compounds edge every day.

They are forming a small team with one mandate: build AI that conducts quantitative research autonomously and continuously. No bureaucracy. No politics. Significant equity. Extreme ownership.

The ideal candidate has 7+ years of engineering at top-tier quantitative trading firms with real production ownership of research or trading infrastructure, deep systems knowledge across the stack, fluency in Python (and systems languages when needed), and a track record of designing systems that strong engineers still happily work in years later. Excellent written communication, extreme ownership, and sharp judgment about scope are essential. Experience with ML at scale, equity trading systems, or being the technical center of gravity on a small team is a plus.

This role owns the entire technical surface: the data platform that ingests the world’s information, the research platform quants and AI systems run on, and the trading pipeline that turns the Meta Model into live positions every day. You will set the engineering bar and keep raising it—killing complexity, deleting systems, and deciding what to build versus buy versus ignore. You are personally accountable for the reliability of a live trading system where a silent failure is a real loss, and you will work directly with the founder on technical strategy and how to extract more alpha per engineer than firms with a hundred times the headcount.

This is the rarest engineering seat in quant: own the full technical surface of a self-improving hedge fund, set the bar, and compound real edge with extreme ownership, significant equity, and nothing standing between you and the frontier -