Senior Trading Systems DevOps Engineer

Falconx; United States; Remote; USD 179,000 - 226,000; Full time

Job summary

FalconX in New York City seeks an experienced Infrastructure/Systems Engineer to optimize low-latency trading platforms. You will architect AWS and hybrid cloud infrastructure for microsecond execution, tune Linux kernels, and implement zero-downtime release pipelines for core engines.

Collaborate across teams to boost reliability, performance, and security while building real-time telemetry with Grafana Cloud, Prometheus, and Alloy.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and 5+ years in infrastructure or systems engineering in low-latency trading environments.
• Deep Linux kernel knowledge: performance tuning, memory management, and network I/O optimization.
• Hands-on AWS low-latency constructs: Placement Groups, ENA/ENI, high-performance EC2.
• Experience building CI/CD pipelines for stateful trading systems (Jenkins, ArgoCD, GitHub Actions).
• Familiarity with FIX protocol, Aeron messaging, and low-latency routing.

Responsibilities

• Build, scale, and optimize core low-latency trading platforms.
• Architect AWS and hybrid cloud infra for microsecond execution.
• Design and maintain release pipelines for trading engines with zero-downtime deployments.
• Collaborate to improve platform reliability, performance, and security.
• Provision high-throughput messaging paths (Aeron, FIX gateways).
• Drive infrastructure automation with Terraform and Ansible.
• Build real-time telemetry pipelines using Grafana Cloud, Prometheus, and Alloy.

Skills

Python

Bash scripting

Linux kernel tuning

Low-latency networking

TCP/IP

English communication

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Terraform

Ansible

Jenkins

ArgoCD

GitHub Actions

Docker

Kubernetes

Grafana Cloud

Prometheus

Aeron

FIX

Chainguard

Job description

Who are we? FalconX is a pioneering team of operators, investors, and builders committed to revolutionizing institutional access to the crypto markets. Operating at the intersection of traditional finance and cutting-edge technology, FalconX addresses the industry's foremost challenges: navigating the digital asset market can be complex and fragmented, with limited products and services that support trading strategies, structures, and liquidity found in conventional financial markets. As a comprehensive solution for all digital asset strategies from start to scale, FalconX operates as the connective tissue empowering clients with seamless navigation through the ever-evolving cryptocurrency landscape.

Responsibilities

Build, scale, and optimize core low-latency trading platforms. Architect AWS and hybrid cloud infrastructure for microsecond execution using kernel tuning (isolcpus), AWS Placement Groups, and enhanced networking (ENA/ENI). Design and maintain release pipelines for core trading engines (OMS, EMS, Gateways), ensuring zero-downtime deployments and deterministic rollbacks. Collaborate across teams to enhance platform reliability, performance, scalability, and security. Provision high-throughput messaging paths (Aeron, FIX gateways) to support venue expansions for market making and regional growth. Drive infrastructure automation, network topology design and OS configurations using Terraform and Ansible. Build real-time telemetry pipelines using Grafana Cloud, Alloy, and Prometheus to detect latency spikes and system issues. Drive continuous platform efficiency, reduce tick-to-trade latency, and accelerate deployment cycles. Practice sustainable incident response, reduce MTTR, establish error budgets, and conduct blameless postmortems. Share on-call rotation duties and serve as a primary escalation point for production incidents. Enforce security best practices across all trading infrastructure to minimize attack surfaces and guarantee data integrity.

Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor's degree with 5+ years of experience as an Infrastructure or Systems Engineer in low-latency electronic trading environments. Deep Linux kernel knowledge: performance tuning, memory management, and network I/O optimization (isolcpus, CPU pinning, ring buffers). Hands-on expertise optimizing AWS low-latency constructs (Placement Groups, ENA/ENI, high-performance EC2 selection). Proven track record productionizing low-latency trading systems across cloud, on-prem, and colocation environments. Experience building CI/CD pipelines for stateful trading systems using Jenkins, ArgoCD or GitHub Actions. Direct experience with FIX protocol execution flows and low-latency Aeron messaging (IPC/UDP). Strong knowledge of physical network design, TCP/IP, UDP, WebSockets, and low-latency routing. Advanced proficiency with Terraform for infrastructure provisioning and Ansible for configuration management. Solid experience managing containerised workloads via Docker, Docker Compose and Kubernetes. Experience securing container base images using minimal distributions like Chainguard. Expertise in observability, debugging, and system tuning using Grafana Cloud, Alloy or Prometheus. Fluent in Python and Bash scripting.

Preferred Qualifications

Hands-on development exposure to Rust or Java for cross-functional debugging of execution engines. Experience implementing operational frameworks (SLOs, SLAs, Error Budgets) for trading desks. Deployment expertise with canary and blue/green release strategies for stateful systems. Strong analytical, communication and problem-solving skills under time-sensitive conditions. Working knowledge of databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL) and key-value stores (Redis). Exposure to algorithmic trading strategies, market-making mechanics or crypto exchange APIs.

Salary and Benefits

The base pay for this role is expected to be between $179,000-$226,000 in the New York City Area. This expected base pay range is based on information at the time this post was generated. This role will also be eligible for other forms of compensation such as a performance linked bonus, equity, and a competitive benefits package. Actual compensation for a successful candidate will be determined based on a number of factors such as location, skillset, experience, qualifications and the level at which the candidate is hired.

Inclusivity Statement

FalconX is committed to building a diverse, inclusive, equitable, and safe workspace for all people. Our roles are intended for people from all walks of life. We encourage all those interested in applying to our organization to submit an application regardless if you are missing some of the listed background requirements, skills, or experiences! As part of our commitment to inclusivity, FalconX would like to acknowledge that the EEOC s