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Software Engineer – C++

Hudson River Trading · Chicago, IL · Trading Tech

Posted Oct 1, 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

Tell me about a time you made code meaningfully faster. How did you measure it before and after?

What they are checking: Whether they profile and measure rather than optimizing on intuition alone.

Tell me about a design decision you made that you later regretted. What did you learn?

What they are checking: Self-awareness and the ability to learn from mistakes in a collaborative, bottom-up team.

What would you do

A trading process loses its connection when a piece of hardware fails. How should the system recover?

What they are checking: Whether they design for fault tolerance and think through safe states when trading is live.

A researcher asks you to add a feature to the order entry path that would add a few microseconds. How do you respond?

What they are checking: Whether they can weigh business value against latency and work with researchers instead of just saying no.

About the work

Walk me through every place latency can hide between a market data packet hitting the network card and your code making a decision.

What they are checking: Whether they understand the full path across hardware, kernel, memory and code where microseconds go.

How do cache misses affect your code, and how do you design data structures to avoid them?

What they are checking: Deep understanding of CPU architecture, which the posting says engineers use every day.

When do you use templates and compile-time work instead of virtual functions in latency-critical C++?

What they are checking: Whether they know the real cost of language features and pick them on purpose.

Explain how you'd write a lock-free single-producer, single-consumer queue and what memory ordering you'd need.

What they are checking: Knowledge of the C++ memory model and atomics, which are easy to get subtly wrong.

How would you design a system to send prioritized data across a WAN link that sometimes drops packets?

What they are checking: Whether they can reason about encoding, prioritization and recovery for data moving between regions.

What's the difference between optimizing for throughput and optimizing for tail latency, and when do they conflict?

What they are checking: Whether they understand the tradeoff that the posting describes as the Pareto frontier.

How do you test a change to order entry code before it touches a live market?

What they are checking: Their discipline around testing and safety where a bug can send real orders.

Practice this interview out loud.

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

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The full job description

As published by Hudson River Trading.

At Hudson River Trading (HRT), C++ is at the center of our live trading systems and research infrastructure. Our C++ engineers build the highly performant, fault-tolerant systems that power trading across global markets. HRT’s distributed system is on the Pareto frontier of latency and throughput, giving you limitless opportunity to leverage your deep knowledge of C++, OS internals, CPU architecture, and networking hardware and protocols. You’ll work side-by-side with researchers, traders, and hardware specialists, implementing solutions where every microsecond matters. Our bottom-up approach to projects and our highly collaborative environment empower talented engineers to make significant contributions and see their impact daily. At HRT, you'll be challenged to solve complex problems in a fast-paced, highly competitive industry, surrounded by some of the brightest minds in the field. C++ Engineers at HRT work on a wide variety of projects. Examples include:&nbsp; • Develop and optimize infrastructure for market data, order entry and execution logic, spanning tens of asset classes including options, equities, futures, crypto, and fixed income.&nbsp; • Design fault-tolerant, low-latency systems for live trading, including encoding/prioritization of data over WAN links and recovery from hardware failures. • Profile and improve performance-critical code for both throughput and latency in production environments. • Build and maintain infrastructure that drives products including client-facing wholesale and SDP platforms, distributed network filesystems, and scalable research workflows. • Write software that interfaces with specialized hardware such as FPGAs and ASICs used in trading systems. Profile • You’re one of the top devs in your current organization, as measured by productivity, technical capability, and helpfulness to other devs. • You are capable of solving complex engineering problems independently and providing technical advice for others in areas of your expertise.&nbsp; • You can make progress on long-term architectural projects while troubleshooting smaller tasks and bug fixes with agility. • You can describe software designs at a high level (the abstract interface), low level (step-by-step algorithm), or anywhere in between.&nbsp; • You are always looking for ways to make systems better. Qualifications • 1+ years of professional work experience&nbsp; • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field • Superior design, debugging, and problem solving skills • Advanced C++ experience is required, daily use preferred • Knowledge of UNIX operating systems (we use Linux), system/processor performance, and network communication The estimated base salary range for this position is 200,000 to 300,000 USD per year (or local equivalent). The base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. This role will also be eligible for discretionary performance-based bonuses and a competitive benefits package. Culture <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Hudson River Trading (HRT) brings a scientific approach to trading financial products. We have built one of the world's most sophisticated computing environments for research and development. Our researchers are at the forefront of innovation in the world of algorithmic trading. \n\nAt HRT we come from a variety of disciplines: mathematics and computer science, physics, and engineering, media and tech. We’re a community of self-starters who are motivated by the excitement of being at the cutting edge of automation in every part of our organization - from trading, to business operations, to recruiting and beyond. Our culture celebrates great ideas whether they come from HRT veterans or new hires. At HRT we’re friends and colleagues – whether we are sharing a meal, playing the latest board game, or writing elegant code. We embrace a culture of togetherness that extends far beyond the walls of our office.\n\nFeel like you belong at HRT? Our goal is to find the best people and bring them together to do great work in a place where everyone is valued. HRT is proud of our diverse staff; we have offices all over the globe and benefit from our varied and unique perspectives. HRT is an equal opportunity employer; so whoever you are we’d love to get to know you."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13185,"3":{"1":0},"10":1,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"IBM Plex Sans","16":11}" data-sheets-textstyleruns="{"1":0}{"1":328,"2":{"2":{"1":2,"2":16711935}}}{"1":402}{"1":917,"2":{"2":{"1":2,"2":16711935}}}{"1":945}">Hudson River Trading (HRT) brings a scientific approach to trading financial products. We have built one of the world's most sophisticated computing environments for research and development. Our researchers are at the forefront of innovation in the world of algorithmic trading. At HRT we welcome a variety of expertise: mathematics and computer science, physics and engineering, media and tech. We’re a community of self-starters who are motivated by the excitement of being at the cutting edge of automation in every part of our organization—from trading, to business operations, to recruiting and beyond. We value openness and transparency, and celebrate great ideas from HRT veterans and new hires alike. At HRT we’re friends and colleagues – whether we are sharing a meal, playing the latest board game, or writing elegant code. We embrace a culture of togetherness that extends far beyond the walls of our office. Feel like you belong at HRT? Our goal is to find the best people and bring them together to do great work in a place where everyone is valued. HRT is proud of our diverse staff; we have offices all over the globe and benefit from our varied and unique perspectives. HRT is an equal opportunity employer; so whoever you are we’d love to get to know you. Please be advised: Use of AI tools by an applicant during interviews or assessments is strictly prohibited, unless otherwise instructed or agreed upon. We employ various methods to evaluate the authenticity of candidate responses. If we determine that AI assistance was used by an applicant during an interview or an assessment, we reserve the right to immediately end the interview or assessment, disqualify the applicant’s candidacy and/or rescind any job offers extended. <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Hudson River Trading (HRT) brings a scientific approach to trading financial products. We have built one of the world's most sophisticated computing environments for research and development. Our researchers are at the forefront of innovation in the world of algorithmic trading. \n\nAt HRT we come from a variety of disciplines: mathematics and computer science, physics, and engineering, media and tech. We’re a community of self-starters who are motivated by the excitement of being at the cutting edge of automation in every part of our organization - from trading, to business operations, to recruiting and beyond. Our culture celebrates great ideas whether they come from HRT veterans or new hires. At HRT we’re friends and colleagues – whether we are sharing a meal, playing the latest board game, or writing elegant code. We embrace a culture of togetherness that extends far beyond the walls of our office.\n\nFeel like you belong at HRT? Our goal is to find the best people and bring them together to do great work in a place where everyone is valued. HRT is proud of our diverse staff; we have offices all over the globe and benefit from our varied and unique perspectives. HRT is an equal opportunity employer; so whoever you are we’d love to get to know you."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13185,"3":{"1":0},"10":1,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"IBM Plex Sans","16":11}" data-sheets-textstyleruns="{"1":0}{"1":328,"2":{"2":{"1":2,"2":16711935}}}{"1":402}{"1":917,"2":{"2":{"1":2,"2":16711935}}}{"1":945}">You can review our Global Applicant Privacy Notice , which explains how we process applicant information. &nbsp;

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