Trade Support Engineer

About the Role:

A trading firm in Chicago is seeking a highly skilled Trade Desk Support Engineer to join their dynamic trading operations team. In this critical role, you will provide real-time front-line support to traders, troubleshoot and resolve trading system issues, and collaborate with technology teams to ensure stability and efficiency across the trading stack.

Key Responsibilities:

• Serve as the primary point of contact for front-office trading support, handling live issues and requests from the trade desk in a fast-paced environment.
• Monitor and manage real-time trading systems and FIX connections across multiple asset classes.
• Investigate trade breaks, latency concerns, order routing issues, and system anomalies with urgency and precision.
• Develop and maintain automation scripts and tools to streamline trading workflows, support, and diagnostics.
• Collaborate closely with developers, infrastructure engineers, and traders to ensure system stability, performance, and functionality.
• Participate in post-incident reviews and contribute to root cause analysis and preventative measures.
• Support daily trading operations including pre-market checks, end-of-day processes, and compliance reporting.
• Act as a liaison between trading, dev, and infrastructure teams to facilitate continuous improvement and operational excellence.

Qualifications:

• Education: Bachelors degree in computer science or similar field.
• 2-5 years of experience in trade or application support.
• Trading Experience: Background as a trade support engineer, or trading application support engineer. Previous experience working in a trading environment; solid understanding of trade lifecycle and market structure.
• Technical Skills:
• Strong scripting proficiency in Python, Bash, or PowerShell (knowledge of more than one is a plus).
• Familiarity with Linux/Unix systems and command-line tools.
• Experience with FIX protocol and log analysis tools.
• Familiarity with trading platforms (e.g. Bloomberg, Fidessa, TT, proprietary systems).
• Problem Solving: Able to troubleshoot high-pressure, real-time issues with urgency and accuracy.
• Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills; confident working directly with traders and senior stakeholders.
• Other:
• Experience with monitoring tools (e.g. Grafana, Splunk, Prometheus).
• Familiarity with version control systems (e.g. Git).
• Knowledge of financial markets and trading concepts.

This role must sit out of the firms Chicago office working in person at least 1 day per week. At this time, the team is unable to provide visa sponsorship.