Low-Level Software Engineer

Fintal Partners; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Fintal Partners is seeking an Embedded C++ Software Engineer to join its high-performance engineering team in Chicago. You will build and optimize latency-sensitive trading systems, working close to hardware and trading environments to deliver impactful solutions.

You will design, implement, and tune low-latency C++ software, partnering with hardware engineers and traders to push performance limits while maintaining reliability and scalability in production systems.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of professional modern C++ development experience.
• Strong understanding of performance-sensitive or real-time systems.
• Experience with Linux, multithreading, concurrency, networking, memory management, and/or CPU architecture.
• Experience developing software that interacts closely with hardware is highly desirable.
• Low-latency trading experience is a plus, but strong engineers from other performance-critical environments are encouraged to apply.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop low-latency, high-throughput trading systems.
• Optimize C++ applications for latency, throughput, and reliability.
• Work at the intersection of software and hardware, including FPGA/ASIC-based systems.
• Identify performance bottlenecks across CPU, memory, networking, and system architecture.
• Collaborate with hardware engineers, traders, and other engineering teams.
• Own projects from design and development through production deployment and optimization.

Skills

Modern C++

Low-latency systems

Linux

Multithreading

Performance optimization

Education

BS/MS in Computer Science/Engineering

Tools

GCC

Valgrind

Linux tooling

Job description

A leading quantitative trading firm is looking for an Embedded C++ Software Engineer to join its high-performance engineering team. This is an opportunity to work on some of the most latency-sensitive systems in electronic trading, where software performance has a direct impact on the business.

You’ll work across the trading technology stack, building and optimizing high-performance, low-latency C++ systems and solving complex systems-level performance problems. The role sits close to both the hardware and trading environments, giving engineers significant ownership over the technology they build.

What you’ll work on:

• Design and develop low-latency, high-throughput trading systems
• Optimize C++ applications for latency, throughput, and reliability
• Work at the intersection of software and specialized hardware, including FPGA/ASIC-based systems
• Identify performance bottlenecks across CPU, memory, networking, and system architecture
• Collaborate closely with hardware engineers, traders, and other engineering teams
• Own projects from design and development through production deployment and optimization

What they’re looking for:

• 2+ years of professional modern C++ development experience
• Strong understanding of performance-sensitive or real-time systems
• Experience with Linux, multithreading, concurrency, networking, memory management, and/or CPU architecture
• Experience developing software that interacts closely with hardware is highly desirable
• Low-latency trading experience is a plus, but strong engineers from other performance-critical environments are encouraged to apply
• BS/MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field

This is particularly well suited to engineers who enjoy getting deep into C++ performance, systems internals, hardware interaction, and latency optimization while working in an environment where engineering is central to the business.