Network Engineer

Nascent; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-friendly

Bonus upside

Home-office stipend

Health benefits

Open vacation policy

Parental leave

Job summary

Nascent is seeking a hands-on Network Engineer to own the low-latency trading connectivity stack, spanning colocation, exchange feeds, and cross-connects. You will design architecture, build automation, and own incidents end-to-end in a small team that values aggressive uptime and deterministic performance.

Expect to work with SREs, quant teams, and systems engineers; you’ll craft topology, manage routing (BGP/OSPF), and implement Python tooling to monitor and automate critical paths in the

Qualifications

• 3+ years hands-on with L2/L3 networking in latency-sensitive environments.
• Strong knowledge of BGP and OSPF in production.
• Proficiency in Python for automation and tooling.
• Hands-on firewall configuration and management (Cisco ASA or Palo Alto).
• Packet capture and protocol troubleshooting (tcpdump, Wireshark).

Responsibilities

• Own colocation connectivity: cross-connects, exchange feeds, and carrier relationships across production colo facilities.
• Design and maintain low-latency L2/L3 network topologies for trading infrastructure.
• Configure, troubleshoot, and optimize BGP and OSPF routing in production.
• Maintain precision time synchronization (PTP / IEEE 1588) across trading and infrastructure systems.
• Manage firewall policy (Cisco ASA, Palo Alto, or equivalent) — changes that directly affect production traffic paths.
• Write Python tooling for network automation, configuration management, and operational monitoring.
• Perform packet capture and protocol-level troubleshooting (tcpdump, Wireshark).
• Build and maintain runbooks, network diagrams, and infrastructure documentation.
• Participate in the on-call rotation and own incidents end to end, from triage through post-mortem.

Skills

L2/L3 networking

BGP and OSPF

PTP time sync

Python automation

Firewall management

Packet capture

CCNP/CCIE (nice to have)

IaC (Ansible, Terraform)

Hybrid-cloud connectivity

Tools

Ansible

Terraform

AWS Direct Connect

Azure ExpressRoute

tcpdump

Wireshark

Cisco ASA

Palo Alto

Job description

Opportunity

The Opportunity You'll own the network infrastructure that connects Nascent's trading systems to exchanges, colocations, and internal platforms — the physical and logical fabric that every microsecond of execution depends on. This is a hands-on build-and-operate role: you'll design low-latency network topologies, manage colocation cross-connects and exchange connectivity, maintain precision time synchronization, and keep firewall and routing policy tight. You'll work alongside systems engineers, SREs, and quant infrastructure teams who treat deterministic performance as a first-class engineering discipline. This isn't a ticket-queue seat inside a large NOC. You'll be one of two network engineers with direct ownership over architecture decisions, vendor relationships, and the tooling you build to monitor and automate the stack — designing connectivity from scratch, not just maintaining what someone else built. The problems are real: packet captures at the switch port, PTP drift investigations, firewall policy reviews that directly affect trade flow — and you'll have the autonomy to solve them end to end. This position must be geographically located within +/- 3 hours EST.

Responsibilities

• Own colocation connectivity: cross-connects, exchange feeds, and carrier relationships across production colo facilities.
• Design and maintain low-latency L2/L3 network topologies for trading infrastructure.
• Configure, troubleshoot, and optimize BGP and OSPF routing in production.
• Maintain precision time synchronization (PTP / IEEE 1588) across trading and infrastructure systems.
• Manage firewall policy (Cisco ASA, Palo Alto, or equivalent) — changes that directly affect production traffic paths.
• Write Python tooling for network automation, configuration management, and operational monitoring.
• Perform packet capture and protocol-level troubleshooting (tcpdump, Wireshark).
• Build and maintain runbooks, network diagrams, and infrastructure documentation.
• Participate in the on-call rotation and own incidents end to end, from triage through post-mortem.

About You

• You've worked in latency-sensitive, colocation, or trading environments — you understand why microseconds matter and how network decisions land on execution.
• You design infrastructure from scratch rather than only operating what someone else built.
• You script your way out of repetitive work; automation is instinct, not an afterthought.
• You own incidents end to end — you don't elevate and wait, you dig in until it's resolved.
• You're comfortable as one of two network engineers: small team, real ownership, nowhere to hide.
• You treat on-call as part of the craft, not an imposition.
• You translate network decisions into language systems engineers, SREs, and quant teams can act on.

Preferred Experience

• 3+ years hands-on with L2/L3 networking in latency-sensitive, colocation, or trading environments.
• Strong working knowledge of BGP and OSPF — configuration, troubleshooting, and design in production.
• Production experience with PTP (IEEE 1588) or comparable precision time synchronization.
• Proficiency in Python for network automation, configuration management, or operational tooling.
• Hands-on firewall configuration and management (Cisco ASA, Palo Alto, or equivalent).
• Packet capture and protocol-level troubleshooting (tcpdump, Wireshark).
• Nice to have: CCNP/CCIE with practical work behind it; IaC for network config (Ansible, Terraform); hybrid-cloud connectivity (AWS Direct Connect, Azure ExpressRoute); DPDK or kernel-bypass exposure.

About Nascent

Founded in 2020, Nascent exists to build, expand, and capture opportunity, in open markets and permissionless technologies. Building from a base of permanent capital, we deploy assets across a range of both liquid and long-term strategies that ensure we are among the most active users of the open financial system we are helping to build. We’ve backed 100+ early-stage teams that we believe can change markets and expand what’s possible. At Nascent, we combine that venture + market pedigree with product-grade engineering to turn research into revenue: experiments that ship fast, are evaluated rigorously, and move P&L. We focus on models, low-latency infrastructure, and resilient systems that compound performance over time.

Our Team & Culture

We’re an interdisciplinary team of engineers, quants, and operators who treat skill-building like a sport. The culture is competition + curiosity: push to win, share learnings, and iterate publicly through red-teams, internal games, and post-mortems. Autonomy isn’t a perk — it’s how we ship.

Principles that drive our team & work

• Compete to win
• Explore, experiment, play
• Always be building
• Seek and speak truth
• Own your shit.

What we offer

• The opportunity to learn, experiment and build in an entrepreneurial environment
• Remote-first, distributed team with frequent in-person sprints and retreats.
• Competitive total comp with strong bonus upside tied to performance.
• Hardware & home-office stipend, conference and learning budgets.
• Comprehensive health benefits (medical/dental/vision), life insurance.
• Open vacation policy as well as flexible work hours and location
• 16 weeks fully-paid parental leave + supported return to work.
• Retirement matching, open vacation policy, flexible hours.

We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome diverse perspectives.