Jobs › DRW

Senior Virtualization Engineer

DRW · Chicago, IL · $220,000–$280,000 a year · IO - Enterprise Systems

Posted Oct 2, 2026 · We last checked this listing on Oct 6, 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.

About your past

The team aims for simple, scalable solutions using off-the-shelf tools plus the right amount of engineering. Tell me about a time you chose not to build something custom.

What they are checking: Their judgment about when custom engineering is worth the long-term maintenance cost.

As the senior engineer, how would you guide less experienced teammates through a design this large?

What they are checking: Whether they can lead design work, explain trade-offs and share ownership rather than doing it all alone.

Tell me about an upgrade of a large virtualization platform that went badly. What did you learn?

What they are checking: Honesty about failure and whether they now plan upgrades with staged rollouts and clear rollback.

What would you do

How would you migrate workloads from an existing hypervisor platform like VMware to OpenStack without disrupting trading desks?

What they are checking: Planning for phased migration, testing and rollback when the users are revenue-generating desks.

A compute node fails and several VMs go down. What is your response, and what should the platform have done on its own?

What they are checking: Whether they think about automated recovery and failure domains, not just manual firefighting.

About the work

We are building a new OpenStack-based private cloud. Walk me through how you would design it, from control plane to networking to storage.

What they are checking: Whether they understand the OpenStack components well enough to make sound architecture choices, not just run installs.

Trading desks, data scientists and enterprise apps all share the compute. How do you keep a noisy research job from hurting a latency-sensitive workload?

What they are checking: Knowledge of CPU pinning, NUMA, quotas and placement that protect performance in shared virtual infrastructure.

How do you automate the build and lifecycle of hypervisor hosts?

What they are checking: Experience with tools like Ansible, Terraform or PXE pipelines that make hosts repeatable rather than handcrafted.

How do you decide on storage for a private cloud, say Ceph versus a commercial array?

What they are checking: Whether they can weigh performance, failure behavior and operational cost instead of picking a favorite.

How would you measure whether the new private cloud is actually serving its users well?

What they are checking: Whether they define user-facing measures like provisioning time and capacity headroom, not just host uptime.

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The full job description

As published by DRW.

DRW is a diversified trading firm with over 3 decades of experience bringing sophisticated technology and exceptional people together to operate in markets around the world. We value autonomy and the ability to quickly pivot to capture opportunities, so we operate using our own capital and trading at our own risk. Headquartered in Chicago with offices throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia, we trade a variety of asset classes including Fixed Income, ETFs, Equities, FX, Commodities and Energy across all major global markets. We have also leveraged our expertise and technology to expand into three non-traditional strategies: real estate, venture capital and cryptoassets. We operate with respect, curiosity and open minds. The people who thrive here share our belief that it’s not just what we do that matters–it's how we do it. DRW is a place of high expectations, integrity, innovation and a willingness to challenge consensus. The Virtualization team provides scalable on-premises compute for DRW’s trading desks, data scientists, and enterprise application teams. Our goal is to enable teams to keep focused on their business goals by providing simple, scalable solutions with off the shelf tools and the right amount of focused engineering. We're looking for a Senior Engineer for our Virtualization team who will help guide the design and implementation of a new OpenStack-based virtualization platform. In this role you will help guide key architectural decisions for this platform, set engineering standards, identify and eliminate risks, and ensure optimal performance and cost-efficiency. Our philosophy: • We believe in relentless automation of repetitive tasks. • We have the curiosity and drive to dig deep and find creative solutions. • We believe our goal is to find the right solution rather than always being right. • We provide exceptional customer service to our teams and trading desks. • We care more that the right thing is done than about rigid job descriptions or boundaries. What you’ll do: • Own and improve infrastructure, processes, and standards for DRW’s Virtualization platform. • Relentlessly automate repetitive manual tasks. • Design, implement, and manage OpenStack clouds, including deployment, configuration, and maintenance of OpenStack components. • Diagnose and rectify complex problems involving multiple teams related to OpenStack including compute, storage, and networking issues. • Provide exceptional customer service to our platform’s users. • Coach engineers on best practices, help investigate outages, set a high standard for operational and technical excellence. • Ability to troubleshoot and resolve critical production issues in a high-intensity trading environment as part of an on-call rotation. Your background: • Expert level proficiency in administration of OpenStack. • Deep knowledge of networking, storage, Linux, and virtualization fundamentals. • Proficiency with industry-standard IAC tooling (e.g. Terraform, Ansible). • Scripting/Coding experience in multiple languages (e.g. Python, Golang, Bash). • Experience maintaining/deploying/configuring server hardware and deploying virtual machines. • A service focused attitude: you ask questions and focus on getting the right resources and solutions to people instead of rigid boundaries. • Strong written and verbal communication skills. You can work across teams and have evidence-based discussions on technical and operational topics. • You enjoy leading by example. You cultivate technical excellence and soft skills in your team members. Bonus points if you have: • Experience with VMWare ESXi. • Experience with Containerization / Kubernetes. • Experience administering on-premise infrastructure. • Experience developing, deploying, and supporting full stack web applications. • Experience with multiple programming languages in both greenfield development and legacy maintenance. The annual base salary range for this position is $220,000 to $280,000 depending on the candidate’s experience, qualifications, and relevant skill set. The position is also eligible for an annual discretionary bonus. In addition, DRW offers a comprehensive suite of employee benefits including group medical, pharmacy, dental and vision insurance, 401k (with discretionary employer match), short and long-term disability, life and AD&D insurance, health savings accounts, and flexible spending accounts. For more information about DRW's processing activities and our use of job applicants' data, please view our Privacy Notice at https://drw.com/privacy-notice . California residents, please review the California Privacy Notice for information about certain legal rights at https://drw.com/california-privacy-notice . [#LI-SK1]  

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