Sr. Manager, Software Engineering - API

Trade Station Group, Inc.; United States; Remote; USD 130,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading online brokerage firm is seeking a Senior Manager of Software Engineering to lead the development of their API platform. This pivotal role involves driving technical strategy, building API products, and fostering an excellent developer experience. The ideal candidate should have a strong background in API design, cloud-native architectures, and team management. Additionally, experience in the brokerage or financial services industry is preferred. The position allows for remote work across several states.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of relevant team management experience in high-performance environments.
• Deep expertise in API architecture and lifecycle management.
• Strong understanding of cloud-native architectures and container orchestration.

Responsibilities

• Lead the build-out of TradeStation’s next-generation API platform.
• Own the technical strategy for the API platform and drive API-first design principles.
• Foster a developer experience mindset ensuring documentation quality and onboarding efficiency.

Skills

API design expertise

Strong presentation skills

Understanding of Agile methodologies

Proficiency in modern programming languages

Education

BS in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Kubernetes

AWS

Job description

Remote Position - must reside Florida, Texas, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, Utah or Wisconsin

Who We Are:

TradeStation is the home of those born to trade. As an online brokerage firm and trading ecosystem, we are focused on delivering the ultimate trading experience for active traders and institutions. We continuously push the boundaries of what's possible, encourage out-of-the-box thinking, and relentlessly search for like-minded innovators.

At TradeStation, we are building an AI-First culture. We expect team members to embrace AI as a core part of their daily workflow, whether that’s using AI to accelerate development, enhance decision‑making, improve client outcomes, or streamline internal processes. We hire, grow, and promote people who can harness AI responsibly and creatively. We treat AI as a partner in problem‑solving, not just a tool; following our governance standards to ensure AI is used ethically, securely, and transparently. If you join us, you’re joining a culture where AI is how we work.

Are you ready to make yourself at home?

What We Are Looking For:

We are looking for a Sr. Manager, Software Engineering to lead the build‑out of TradeStation’s next‑generation API platform. This is a pivotal role: our APIs are the front door for every client application, third‑party integration, and AI‑powered experience we deliver. This role will own the strategy and execution to establish TradeStation as the leader in trading APIs—creating the developer experience that drives adoption, increases trade revenue, and enables an ecosystem of innovators to build on our platform.

The team will design, build, and operate API products spanning REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and emerging protocols like MCP (Model Context Protocol) to power AI agents and agentic workflows. Internally, this role will drive the adoption of gRPC as our high‑performance service communication standard. Externally, this role will champion a world‑class developer experience— from API design and documentation to SDKs, sandbox environments, and developer portal capabilities. This Sr. Manager will partner closely with Product Management, who owns the product roadmap and prioritization, while the Sr. Manager owns the technical vision, architecture, and engineering execution.

The Sr. Manager, Software Engineering, will work with group Architects and cross‑functional partners to drive technical innovation and optimize your team’s performance in a fast‑moving business and technical environment. This role will provide leadership for Technical Leads and software development teams, participate in technology management planning sessions, coordinate execution with the enterprise architecture vision, and communicate with executive leadership. The successful candidate will develop a deep understanding of API consumers—both internal teams and external developers—to drive design decisions, execute product roadmaps, and act as the evangelist for TradeStation’s API platform. This role offers a unique opportunity to shape a critical growth vector for the company while leading a talented group of highly dedicated engineers.

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Serve as an inspirational and outcome‑driven leader—execution and follow‑up is everything
• Own the technical strategy and technical roadmap for TradeStation’s API platform, spanning REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and AI-native protocols (MCP), partnering with Product Management on product strategy and prioritization
• Drive API‑first design principles across the organization, ensuring consistency, discoverability, and developer ergonomics across all API surfaces
• Foster a developer‑experience (DX) mindset: treat external and internal API consumers as customers, obsess over documentation quality, onboarding friction, and time‑to‑first‑call
• Lead the adoption of gRPC as the internal high‑performance service protocol, establishing patterns, tooling, and best practices for teams across the organization
• Define and enforce API governance standards including versioning, deprecation policies, rate limiting, authentication/authorization patterns, and SLA management
• Collaborate closely with Product Management, Business, and executive stakeholders to translate business objectives into technical execution plans that drive trade revenue and platform adoption
• Manage cloud‑native infrastructure strategy on AWS and Kubernetes, optimizing for reliability, performance, and cost efficiency
• Champion psychological safety within the team environment, modeling it and insisting on it as a core value
• Select, assess, develop, mentor, manage, and retain top technical talent
• Effectively manage people, including planning, assigning, and directing work; evaluating performance, addressing complaints, and resolving problems
• Ensure knowledge sharing among the team to avoid information silos and address key‑staff risks
• Continuously refine development processes to improve overall performance and reduce friction to delivery
• Manage and maintain Agile practices and track team performance based on outcomes
• Clear roadblocks for teams to ensure delivery focus
• Participate in business planning and communicate technical knowledge of vision for both current and future API products

The Skills You Bring:

• Superior understanding and execution of organizational goals and objectives
• Strong presentation skills, excellent written and oral communication skills
• Strong technical depth and raw intellectual ability
• Deep expertise in API design, architecture, and lifecycle management across multiple paradigms (REST, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSockets)
• Strong understanding of API gateway and management platforms (e.g., Kong, Apigee, AWS API Gateway) and service mesh technologies
• Hands‑on understanding of Protocol Buffers, OpenAPI/Swagger specifications, and schema‑first API design
• Strong knowledge of cloud‑native architectures, AWS, Kubernetes, and container orchestration
• Solid understanding of authentication and authorization patterns for APIs (OAuth 2.0, API keys, JWT, mTLS)
• Strong understanding of Agile development methodologies, DevOps, continuous delivery, and related concepts
• Experience with resource allocation and personnel management
• Must be a team player that is assertive, passionate, and goal‑oriented
• Solid organization and prioritization skills
• Ability to work in a fast‑paced environment with the ability to pivot and adapt as needed
• Strong understanding of software design principles and patterns
• Expertise and demonstrated experience in systems design, development, implementation, and deployment processes
• Demonstrated ability to make decisions regarding necessary team size and composition
• Strong pattern recognition abilities to identify abstractions and processes that drive team success
• Development background with proficiency in modern programming languages commonly used for API development (Go, Rust, TypeScript/Node.js, Python); hands‑on coding is not required but the ability to evaluate technical tradeoffs and review architecture decisions is essential
• Experience in the brokerage or financial services industry, especially building APIs for trading or market data preferred
• Experience designing and operating developer portals, SDKs, and API documentation platforms preferred
• Knowledge of AI/ML integration patterns for APIs, including function‑calling interfaces, streaming responses, and agent‑to‑API communication (e.g., MCP, tool‑use protocols) preferred
• Experience with high‑throughput, low‑latency API systems serving real‑time financial data preferred
• Understanding of regulatory requirements for API access controls, data distribution, and audit logging in financial services preferred
• Track record of growing API adoption and measuring developer experience through metrics (TTFB, error rates, adoption funnels) preferred
• Experience with infrastructure as code and automating deployments in cloud‑native environments preferred
• Familiarity with service mesh architectures (Istio, Linkerd) and observability stacks for distributed API systems preferred

Minimum Qualifications:

• BS in Computer Science or related technical discipline, or equivalent work experience
• 7+ years of relevant team management and leadership experience in high‑performance, business‑critical environments

TradeStation provides equal employment opportunities to current and prospective employees, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, age, pregnancy, disability, handicap, citizenship, veteran or marital status, or any other legally recognized status entitled to protection under federal, state, or local anti‑discrimination laws.