JobsChicago Trading Company

C++ Senior Engineer - Options Market Making Execution

Chicago Trading Company · Chicago, IL · Technology

Posted Sep 11, 2026 · We last checked this listing on Sep 20, 2026

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Likely interview questions for this role

Written from this job description, not a generic list. Each one notes what the interviewer is really checking.

Behavioral

Walk me through a time you had to shave latency out of a critical path in a C++ system. What did the profiling actually show, and what did you end up changing?

whether they've done real low-latency work versus theoretical knowledge, and whether they measure before optimizing

Tell me about the last production issue you had to triage under real time pressure. How did you figure out where the problem was?

debugging discipline and composure when something is on fire in a live trading system

Tell me about a time you disagreed with a trader or quant about how a system should behave. How did you handle it?

collaboration style with non-engineering stakeholders who have strong opinions and financial stakes

Describe the most complex distributed system you've built or maintained. What made it hard to reason about, and what would you change if you rebuilt it?

depth of real distributed systems experience and honest self-assessment of past design choices

Technical

Say you have a hot loop that processes market data and you notice occasional latency spikes that don't show up in average timings. How would you go about finding the cause?

understanding of tail latency versus average case, and familiarity with tools like perf, cache misses, or page faults rather than just guessing

How would you decide between using lock-free data structures versus traditional mutexes for a shared queue between a market data thread and a strategy thread?

depth of multithreading knowledge and whether they understand tradeoffs rather than reflexively reaching for lock-free everywhere

What's your understanding of how cache lines and false sharing can hurt performance in a multithreaded C++ application, and how have you dealt with it?

hardware/software co-design knowledge, since the posting explicitly calls this out

Explain what happens at the network layer when a packet arrives on a NIC and needs to get to your application as fast as possible. Where are the places latency typically creeps in?

depth in networking protocols and kernel bypass concepts relevant to exchange connectivity work

How do you approach testing for a component that sits on the critical path of an execution engine, where a bug could mean real money lost in milliseconds?

rigor around testing practices given the posting's stress on operational safety

What modern C++ features, like move semantics or templates, have you actually used to squeeze out performance, and where have you seen them backfire or add unnecessary complexity?

whether their C++ knowledge is current and pragmatic, not just textbook

Situational

If you had to choose between a well-architected solution that would take three extra days to build and a quick fix that gets a trader's strategy live today, how do you think through that decision?

whether they can balance the posting's emphasis on 'carefully planned, well-structured solutions' against real trading urgency

A quant researcher hands you a pricing model and wants it wired into the execution engine by end of week, but the code they gave you isn't thread-safe and touches shared state. What do you do?

how they manage cross-functional pressure from non-engineers while protecting system integrity

Suppose exchange connectivity starts silently dropping order acknowledgments intermittently, only during high volume periods. How would you approach isolating whether it's your code, the network, or the exchange?

systematic troubleshooting across a distributed system rather than jumping to conclusions

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The full job description

As published by Chicago Trading Company.

<div class="content-intro"><p>Chicago Trading Company (CTC) is a premier proprietary trading firm specializing in options market making. &nbsp;Our collaborative culture fuels innovation in quantitative research, systematic trading strategies, and cutting-edge trading technology. &nbsp;For over three decades CTC has provided critical liquidity across derivatives exchanges worldwide - making them fairer, more transparent, and more efficient.</p> <p>We strive to be the most innovative firm in the industry today, tomorrow, and long into the future while upholding ethical excellence. We believe that CTC makes a positive impact on the markets, the lives of our employees, and all the communities to which we belong. Started in 1995 by a team of forward-thinking Traders, we are proud to call ourselves an industry leader that keeps making markets and each other better.</p></div><p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Our Options Market Making Execution team is looking for a Senior Engineer to build high-performance, elegant solutions to keep CTC's options trading infrastructure fast, efficient, and competitive. You'll partner with Engineers, Traders, and Quant Researchers to develop and fine-tune execution engines and trading strategies with the goal of reducing latency, maximizing performance and improving P&amp;L. By simplifying system management and constantly improving our options trading engines, you'll ensure our trading infrastructure remains scalable, responsive, and cutting-edge.</p> <p><strong>WHAT YOU’LL DO</strong></p> <ul> <li>Design and build high-performance, low-latency trading systems that power our Options Market Making business</li> <li>Work closely with traders, quants and technologists to drive ideas from inception to production in a timely and robust manner.</li> <li>Partner with other teams such as operations, option pricing, exchange connectivity to ensure your solutions seamlessly integrate into our firmwide trading infrastructure.</li> <li>Ensure operational safety and uphold the highest standards of software engineering by thoroughly testing code, following a coherent and maintainable design and architecture, and adhering to best practices—prioritizing carefully planned, well-structured solutions over ad hoc implementations.</li> </ul> <p><strong>WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR</strong></p> <ul> <li>A minimum of 5 years of experience working in a production environment using modern C++</li> <li>Deep knowledge of low level systems programming, optimization, and hardware/software co-design</li> <li>Strong fundamentals in computer architecture and networking protocols</li> <li>Experience writing multithreaded and distributed systems with an affinity for delivering clean, performant code</li> <li>Ability to quickly triage issues and drive the resolution effort through completion</li> <li>Experience working at a high frequency trading firm is preferred</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p><div class="content-pay-transparency"><div class="pay-input"><div class="description"><p><strong>Compensation</strong></p> <p>The salary range for this role is listed below. This role is also eligible for an annual discretionary bonus. The discretionary bonus will be dependent upon the individual’s skills, experience, qualifications, and firm performance.&nbsp;</p></div><div class="title">Salary Range</div><div class="pay-range"><span>$200,000</span><span class="divider">&mdash;</span><span>$250,000 USD</span></div></div></div><div class="content-conclusion"><p>Most teams at CTC, with the exception of Trading, follow a hybrid workplace model, subject to change based on business need.</p> <p><strong>Our Benefits&nbsp;</strong></p> <p>We strongly believe in the well-being of our employees and their families so we offer outstanding benefits to support you both professionally and personally. These benefits include generous time off, insurance coverage, paid parental leave, free breakfast and lunch (plus healthy snacks, of course), wellness reimbursement, and a variety of other benefits focused on providing the best employee experience.&nbsp;</p> <p><em>(Disclaimer: interns and contractors are not eligible for benefits at CTC)&nbsp;</em></p> <p><strong>Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion</strong></p> <p>At CTC, we aim to cultivate a workplace that celebrates diversity and each person feels included, engaged and empowered. Where each of us feels we belong. We are committed to having a diverse workforce and are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. CTC does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform crucial job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment.&nbsp;</p> <p>If you have a disability and believe you need a reasonable accommodation in order to search for a job opening or to apply for a position, please contact us at info@chicagotrading.com. Note that emails sent to this email account for non-disability related issues, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.</p> <p><strong>Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)</strong></p> <p>Information submitted by job applicants may be subject to review and analysis by automated systems, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), as part of the recruitment process. Such systems are utilized to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of our hiring procedures. Applicants are advised that any information provided may be evaluated by AI tools to ensure an equitable and thorough assessment.</p></div>

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