Senior Software Engineer

WorldQuant LLC; New York (NY); On-site; USD 150,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

WorldQuant seeks an senior developer to design, build, and operate large-scale data and ETL systems powering research and investment workflows. You will own critical systems end-to-end, drive architectural decisions, and mentor others through review and collaboration.

Role emphasizes self-direction, accountability, and ability to communicate trade-offs across teams while maintaining code quality and production stability.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software development experience.
• Mastery of at least one major language (Python, Java, Go, C++, or equivalent).
• Strong system design for distributed, scalable, fault-tolerant architectures.
• Experience building ETL/ELT pipelines and large-scale data processing.
• Deep PostgreSQL/MySQL knowledge and strong SQL skills.
• Solid CS fundamentals and design pattern expertise.
• Incident response mindset with root-cause analysis.
• Comfort with AI-assisted coding and tooling.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and own backend services and data pipelines at scale.
• Architect data storage, processing, and data models.
• Build and maintain APIs and messaging/integration layers.
• Lead technical decisions, tool selection, and system boundaries.
• Break down ambiguous requirements into deliverable designs.
• Diagnose production issues with analytic problem solving.
• Improve engineering practices: testing, CI/CD, observability, docs.

Skills

8+ years

Backend development

Data pipelines

Distributed systems

SQL databases

Python

Java

C++

Go

System design

AI readiness

Tools

Docker

Airflow

SQLAlchemy

OpenTelemetry

Grafana

ELK

GitLab CI

Job description

WorldQuant develops and deploys systematic financial strategies across a broad range of asset classes and global markets. We seek to produce high-quality predictive signals (alphas) through our proprietary research platform to employ financial strategies focused on market inefficiencies. Our teams work collaboratively to drive the production of alphas and financial strategies – the foundation of a balanced, global investment platform.

WorldQuant is built on a culture that pairs academic sensibility with accountability for results. Employees are encouraged to think openly about problems, balancing intellectualism and practicality. Excellent ideas come from anyone, anywhere. Employees are encouraged to challenge conventional thinking and possess an attitude of continuous improvement.

Our goal is to hire the best and the brightest. We value intellectual horsepower first and foremost, and people who demonstrate an outstanding talent. There is no roadmap to future success, so we need people who can help us build it.

Technologists at WorldQuant research, design, code, test and deploy firmwide platforms and tooling while working collaboratively with researchers. Our environment is relaxed yet intellectually driven. We seek people who think in code and are motivated by being around like-minded people.

The Role:

We're seeking a senior developer to join our team. You will design, build, and operate large-scale data and ETL systems that power the firm's research and investment workflows. This is a high-autonomy role - you'll own critical systems end-to-end, make architectural decisions, and deliver solutions with minimal guidance. We need someone who is self-directed, able to lead themselves, take ownership of outcomes, and drive complex problems to resolution independently. You should be comfortable communicating across teams, articulating technical trade-offs to stakeholders, and mentoring others through code review and collaboration.

What You'll Do:

• Design, develop, and own backend services and data pipelines that process large volumes of data optimally and at scale
• Architect data storage and processing solutions, including schema design, query optimization, and data modeling
• Build and maintain APIs, messaging systems, and integration layers that connect data producers and consumers
• Drive technical decisions - evaluate trade-offs, choose the right tools, and define system boundaries
• Take ambiguous requirements and break them down into deliverable, well-engineered solutions
• Diagnose and resolve complex production issues - applying strong analytical and systems thinking
• Improve engineering practices: testing, CI/CD, observability, and documentation

What You'll Bring:

• 8+ years of professional software development experience
• Strong programming proficiency: Mastery of at least one major programming language (Python, Java, Go, C++, or equivalent). Beyond syntax fluency, you should understand language internals and be able to apply that depth to write performant, reliable code
• System design: Proven ability to architect distributed, scalable, and fault-tolerant systems. Understanding of common patterns - event-driven architecture, service decomposition, data partitioning, caching strategies
• Data engineering: Experience building ETL/ELT pipelines, working with batch and streaming data, and handling large-scale data processing
• Database proficiency: Deep understanding of relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL) and familiarity with analytical/columnar stores; strong SQL skills including query optimization
• Software engineering depth: Strong grasp of data structures, algorithms, design patterns, and software architecture principles - applied in production, not just theory
• Incident response mindset: Ability to diagnose production issues methodically, drive root-cause analysis, and feed into post-mortems and operational improvement
• AI-agent readiness: Openness to working alongside AI coding agents and LLM-powered tools as part of the development workflow - using AI as a force multiplier for code generation, review, debugging, and documentation
• Nice to Have:
  • Python mastery: Advanced knowledge of Python internals, concurrency (asyncio, threading, multiprocessing), performance profiling, packaging, and strong experience with frameworks such as FastAPI/Flask, SQLAlchemy, pytest, and mypy/type annotations
  • Observability and distributed tracing: Experience with monitoring and observability stacks - metrics, structured logging, distributed tracing (OpenTelemetry, Grafana, ELK) - for diagnosing system behavior and bottlenecks in production
  • DevOps practices: Familiarity with containerization (Docker), CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI, Jenkins), and infrastructure-as-code (Ansible, Terraform)
  • Programming language versatility: Proficiency in additional languages that complement data platform work - C++ for performance-critical systems, Scala for distributed data processing with Apache Spark, or Rust for high-performance data engineering
  • Team leadership and management: Experience leading a development team, running sprints, conducting code reviews, mentoring engineers, and managing stakeholders' expectations
  • Message queues and streaming: Experience with Kafka, Redis, or similar event-driven architectures
  • Data orchestration: Exposure to Airflow or similar workflow orchestration frameworks
  • Frontend / full-stack awareness: Familiarity with modern web technologies (React, TypeScript) for building internal UIs and dashboards
  • Financial services or quantitative finance background
  • Open-source contributions or a public portfolio of technical work

Pay Transparency:

WorldQuant is a total compensation organization where you will be eligible for a base salary, discretionary performance bonus, and benefits.

To provide greater transparency to candidates, we share base pay ranges for all US-based job postings regardless of state. We set standard base pay ranges for all roles based on job function and level, benchmarked against similar stage organizations. When finalizing an offer, we will take into consideration an individual’s experience level and the qualifications they bring to the role to formulate a competitive total compensation package.

The Base Pay Range For This Position Is$150,000 – $250,000 USD.

At WorldQuant, we are committed to providing candidates with all necessary information in compliance with pay transparency laws. If you believe any required details are missing from this job posting, please notify us [e-mail], and we will address your concerns promptly.

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By submitting this application, you acknowledge and consent to terms of the WorldQuant Privacy Policy. The privacy policy offers an explanation of how and why your data will be collected, how it will be used and disclosed, how it will be retained and secured, and what legal rights are associated with that data (including the rights of access, correction, and deletion). The policy also describes legal and contractual limitations on these rights. The specific rights and obligations of individuals living and working in different areas may vary by jurisdiction.