JobsChicago Trading Company

Senior FPGA Engineer

Chicago Trading Company · Chicago, IL · Technology

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

Apply at Chicago Trading Company

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 an FPGA design that was already considered tight. What did you find and how did you fix it?

whether the candidate has real hands-on experience squeezing latency at the level this role requires, not just theoretical knowledge

Tell me about a time your design decisions had to be justified to people who weren't hardware engineers, like traders or quants.

ability to translate technical tradeoffs for non-technical stakeholders, which the role explicitly requires

Tell me about a code review where you pushed back on someone else's design, or someone pushed back on yours. How did it resolve?

whether they can lead technical standards without being territorial, since the role includes championing best practices

Describe a time you had to debug a subtle hardware bug that only showed up under real production conditions, not in simulation.

practical debugging skill and comfort operating without a clean lab environment

Technical

How would you approach designing a low-latency pipeline that reads market data off the wire, parses it, and triggers a decision, all in hardware?

depth of practical FPGA architecture knowledge specific to trading data paths

Tell me about the tradeoffs between using SystemVerilog versus VHDL on a project. When have you made that call and why?

real fluency with the named HDLs rather than surface familiarity with one

Describe a project where you had to build tooling in Python or C++ to support your FPGA testbenches. What problem was the tooling solving?

whether they treat software tooling as a first-class part of the FPGA workflow, as the posting implies

How do you think about the tradeoff between pipelining for throughput and minimizing pure latency in a design?

depth of computer architecture understanding beyond textbook definitions

What's your experience with TCP/UDP or multicast networking in the context of hardware design?

whether the nice-to-have networking knowledge is real or aspirational

What does a good verification strategy look like for a design going straight into a live trading system, where a bug could mean real financial loss?

whether they take verification rigor as seriously as the stakes of the environment demand

Situational

Say you find a timing closure problem two days before a planned production deployment. What do you do?

how the candidate balances schedule pressure against risk in a high-stakes production environment

Imagine a quant comes to you wanting a new signal computed in hardware, but it would require restructuring part of the pipeline. How do you handle that conversation and the roadmap tradeoff?

how they balance short-term incremental delivery against long-term architectural integrity, as the posting frames it

If you joined a team with an existing FPGA codebase and processes you thought were outdated, how would you go about changing them without disrupting delivery?

judgment about influencing team practices tactfully, matching the responsibility to help craft development processes

Practice this interview out loud.

Offer builds a real interview for this exact role at Chicago Trading Company from your resume and this job description, asks the questions one at a time, and tells you what landed. The first one is free.

Practice this out loud

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>Are you excited by the idea of applying your hardware development expertise to power ultra-low-latency trading systems? Do you want to explore new architectures that push the limits of performance and help take some of our most sophisticated trading strategies to the next level? If so, we encourage you to read on!&nbsp;</p> <p>At CTC, we’re looking for a Senior FPGA Engineer to join our FPGA development team to do just that and more. As a member, you'll work closely with other specialists, traders, and quants to design and build the next generation of end-to-end trading systems. While helping craft our development environment and processes, you’ll architect solutions, influence design choices across teams, and see your work translate into real-time impact.&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Responsibilities</strong></p> <ul> <li>Partner with a skilled team to define and implement a pragmatic architectural vision with a focus on ultra-low-latency and reliability.&nbsp;</li> <li>Collaborate with senior technology leaders to continuously improve our trading platform design.&nbsp;</li> <li>Build a deep understanding of trading workflows, quantitative models, and system performance needs while working with a multidisciplinary team.&nbsp;</li> <li>Develop an implementation roadmap in partnership with Quant and Trading to deliver incremental improvements in trading performance and long-term architectural innovation.&nbsp;</li> <li>Lead design implementation efforts, contribute to team code reviews, and champion best practices around performance, logic, standard methodologies and maintainability issues to ensure code-level consistency and scalability.&nbsp;</li> </ul> <p><strong>Qualifications</strong></p> <ul> <li>Proven experience and expertise with FPGA development.&nbsp;</li> <li>Advanced proficiency using HDLs, with an emphasis on SystemVerilog or VHDL.&nbsp;</li> <li>Comfortable working in Python and/or C++ for developing tools, testbenches, and integrations.&nbsp;</li> <li>Demonstrated understanding of computer architectures.&nbsp;</li> <li>Enthusiasm for applying modern, agile design and testing practices.&nbsp;</li> </ul> <p><strong>Nice to Have&nbsp;</strong></p> <ul> <li>Experience in financial markets or trading environments.&nbsp;</li> <li>Knowledge of common networking protocols like TCP/UDP and multicast.&nbsp;</li> </ul><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>$225,000</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>

Apply at Chicago Trading Company

Related jobs

Quant Developer - Research Engineering

Chicago Trading Company · Chicago, IL

Posted Sep 17 · Verified Sep 20

Senior Engineer - Data Ingestion

Chicago Trading Company · Chicago, IL

Posted Sep 17 · Verified Sep 20

Recruiter – Technology (Contract)

Chicago Trading Company · Chicago, IL

Posted Sep 17 · Verified Sep 20

Senior Quantitative Trader - Delta One

Chicago Trading Company · Chicago, IL

Posted Sep 14 · Verified Sep 20

Equity Research Analyst

Chicago Trading Company · Chicago, IL

Posted Sep 11 · Verified Sep 20

Senior Compensation Analyst

Chicago Trading Company · Chicago, IL

Posted Sep 11 · Verified Sep 20