Sr. Director, Software Engineering & Architect

TradeStation is an online brokerage firm focused on delivering an ultimate trading experience for active traders and institutions. They are seeking a visionary Senior Director, Software Engineering & Architect to provide strategic leadership, drive technology solutions, and build a world-class engineering team.

Responsibilities:

• Design and architect enterprise-scale, event-driven systems using streaming platforms like Apache Kafka, event sourcing patterns, and distributed streaming architectures to support real-time order management, trade execution, and post-trade processing
• Lead the technical evolution of our OMS platform, ensuring scalability, fault tolerance, low-latency performance, and high availability across multi-region cloud deployments (AWS preferred)
• Establish architectural standards and best practices for microservices, API design (REST/gRPC/FIX), stateful processing, and real-time data pipelines
• Oversee database architecture and optimization strategies for relational (Postgres) and distributed systems (Redis, Kafka Streams, event stores)
• Provide hands-on technical leadership and mentorship to engineering teams, fostering a culture of engineering excellence, innovation, and continuous learning
• Lead code reviews, enforce coding standards, and champion test automation and CI/CD best practices
• Build and develop high-performing teams of backend engineers and solutions architects
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including product, operations, risk management, and compliance
• Collaborate with senior leadership to define technology roadmaps and prioritize initiatives that align with business objectives and competitive positioning
• Partner with third-party vendors in co-development or embedded models, ensuring seamless integration within regulated environments
• Drive observability and operational excellence through comprehensive monitoring, alerting, and diagnostics (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/OpenSearch)
• Ensure all systems meet regulatory and compliance requirements for financial transaction processing
• Collaborate with product and engineering teams to identify opportunities for AI-driven enhancements across the applications
• Architect scalable interfaces for integrating ML models and AI services into real-time trading workflows, ensuring performance, security, and regulatory compliance
• Champion responsible AI practices and help define the roadmap for leveraging AI in future asset class expansion and client-facing capabilities
• Evaluate and champion adoption of emerging technologies and architectural patterns to maintain competitive advantage
• Represent the technology organization at industry events, contributing to the company's reputation as a technology innovator in financial services

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field
• 10+ years in software engineering
• Extensive experience building complex, mission-critical messaging systems, preferably in financial trading, OMS, or high-frequency transaction processing environments
• Hands-on track record as a solution architect overseeing large-scale cloud deployments (AWS preferred), microservices architectures, stateful event-driven systems, and real-time data pipelines
• Deep, demonstrable expertise in event streaming platforms (Apache Kafka, Kafka Streams, Confluent Platform) and event-driven architecture patterns including event sourcing, CQRS, and saga patterns
• Expert-level knowledge of Java performance optimization including GC tuning, thread/async management, concurrency patterns, and JVM diagnostics
• Extensive experience with relational and distributed database design, optimization, and tuning (Postgres, Redis, Kafka)
• Strong background in API design and implementation (REST, gRPC, FIX protocol), security best practices, and authentication/authorization frameworks
• Proven expertise in observability, monitoring, and operational excellence using tools like Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/OpenSearch
• Demonstrated leadership in code reviews, setting coding and architecture standards, and driving test automation and quality practices
• Strong understanding of margin/risk models, order workflow, trade execution, and post-trade processing for brokerage operations
• Experience working with third-party vendors, ideally in co-development or embedded models within regulated financial contexts
• Exceptional communication skills with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Strategic thinking ability to translate business requirements into scalable, innovative technology solutions
• Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field is preferred
• Experience with Kubernetes orchestration, multi-region architecture, and hybrid deployment models (cloud/on-premises) preferred
• Hands-on experience with stream processing frameworks (Kafka Streams, Apache Flink, or similar), preferrable C++ experience preferred
• Involvement in open-source contributions, especially in cloud infrastructure, event streaming, market data processing, or risk analytics preferred
• Practical experience applying AI/ML techniques to backend systems for risk modeling, predictive analytics, anomaly detection, or operational efficiency preferred
• Knowledge of regulatory and compliance frameworks for financial transaction systems (SEC, FINRA, MiFID II, etc.) preferred
• Familiarity with additional financial protocols and standards (FIX, SWIFT, etc.) preferred
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CloudFormation) and GitOps practices preferred