Senior Production Software Engineer

Optiver; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 180,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) match up to 50%

Comprehensive health coverage

Paid vacation and holidays

Job summary

Optiver is seeking an experienced Production Software Engineer to build infrastructure and automate our trading production environment in Chicago. You will design deployment pipelines, monitor production systems, and develop tooling to reduce operational friction.

You’ll collaborate across operations, development, and infrastructure, mentor junior engineers, and take ownership of production sub-systems end-to-end, driving robust, scalable, and safe change in a fast-paced financial markets

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in CS or related technical field.
• “Strong programming ability (Python at a minimum; Golang/Rust would be beneficial)”
• “Broad understanding of the full technology stack including servers, networking, Linux, databases, web servers and applications”
• “Experience with CI/CD tooling to assist with production change pipelines”
• “Experience with metrics and observability platforms”
• “Experience with technologies such as Ansible, Django, FastAPI, Flask, Jenkins, Hashicorp Vault, Docker/Podman and Kubernetes would be beneficial”
• “Previous experience in production management would be beneficial”
• “Ability to bring an improvement mindset and critical eye to complex operational challenges (including security)”

Responsibilities

• Design and build deployment pipelines that improve how changes enter production, from validation through rollout and verification.
• Build and maintain production environment monitoring infrastructure, focusing on incident detection and alerting.
• Develop tooling and automation to reduce operational friction and increase reliability.
• Collaborate with stakeholders across operations, development, and infrastructure to refine feedback loops across production management.
• Mentor junior team members and help foster growth of engineers.
• Take operational ownership of production sub-systems.
• Own your work end-to-end from problem understanding to design, implementation, testing, deployment, and monitoring.

Skills

Python

Golang/Rust

CI/CD tooling

Metrics/observability

Ansible

Django

FastAPI

Flask

Jenkins

Hashicorp Vault

Docker/Podman

Kubernetes

Production management

Education

Bachelor’s degree in CS or related technical field

Tools

Ansible

Django

FastAPI

Flask

Jenkins

Hashicorp Vault

Docker/Podman

Kubernetes

Job description

Optiver is looking for an experienced Production Software Engineer with responsibilities for building our infrastructure and automating our trading production environment. This team occupies a wide intersection of stakeholders across the business from operations to development, specifically focusing on scaling up change, increasing robustness, and reducing overhead. Your contributions have the potential to directly enable a faster and safer innovation cycle for Optiver.

What you’ll do:

• Design and build deployment pipelines that improve how changes enter production, from validation through to rollout and verification, considering efficiency, risk management and safety of the process.
• Build and maintain production environment monitoring infrastructure, focusing on incident detection, operations visibility, and alerting.
• Develop tooling and automation to reduce operational friction, improve environment consistency, and increase reliability.
• Collaborate with stakeholders across operations, development, and infrastructure to establish and refine feedback loops across all aspects of production management.
• Collaborate with engineers in our global offices to align our production environments
• Mentor junior team members and help foster the growth of the next generation of engineers
• Take operational ownership of production sub-systems
• Own your work end-to-end: from understanding the business problem through design, implementation, testing, deployment, and monitoring.

What you’ll get:

You’ll join a culture of collaboration and excellence, surrounded by curious thinkers and creative problem-solvers. Motivated by a passion for continuous improvement, you’ll thrive in a supportive, high-performing environment alongside talented colleagues, collectively tackling some of the toughest challenges in the financial markets.

In addition, you’ll receive:

• The opportunity to work alongside best‑in‑class professionals from over 40 different countries
• Highly competitive compensation package
• Global profit‑sharing pool and performance‑based bonus structure
• 401(k) match up to 50%
• Comprehensive health, mental, dental, vision, disability, and life coverage
• 25 paid vacation days alongside market holidays
• Extensive office perks, including breakfast, lunch and snacks, regular social events, clubs, sporting leagues and more

Who you are:

You’re a systems‑minded engineer who thrives at the intersection of software, infrastructure, and operations. You’re passionate about enabling fast, safe change — and understand the value of clear standards, scalable workflows, and high‑trust automation in a production context.

• Bachelor’s degree in CS or related technical field
• Strong programming ability (Python at a minimum; Golang/Rust would be beneficial) and software engineering principles.
• Broad understanding of the full technology stack including server hardware, networking, Linux, databases, web servers and applications
• Experience with CI/CD tooling to assist with production change pipelines
• Experience with metrics and observability platforms
• Experience with technologies such as Ansible, Django, FastAPI, Flask, Jenkins, Hashicorp Vault, Docker/Podman and Kubernetes would be beneficial
• Previous experience in production management would be beneficial
• Ability to bring an improvement mindset and critical eye to complex operational challenges (including security) and systems

Who we are:

At Optiver, our mission is to improve the market by injecting liquidity, providing accurate pricing, increasing transparency and stabilizing the market no matter the conditions. With a focus on continuous improvement, we prioritize safeguarding the health and efficiency of the markets for all participants. As one of the largest market making institutions, we are a respected partner on 100+ exchanges across the globe.

Our differences are our edge. Optiver does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental disability, or other legally protected characteristics.

Below is the expected base salary for this position. This is a good‑faith estimate of the base pay scale for this position and offers will ultimately be determined based on experience, education, skill set, and performance in the interview process. This position will also be eligible for a discretionary bonus (if determined by Optiver) and Optiver’s benefits package with the benefits listed above.

Base Salary Range

$200,000—$200,000 USD