Senior Backend Engineer - RTI

We are hiring a Senior Backend Engineer to design and develop scalable backend systems for processing real-time news and supporting trading decision-making in the RTI team. This role will focus on building high-performance data pipelines, managing efficient databases, and implementing APIs for seamless integration with internal tools.

As part of our technology team, you will collaborate with researchers and engineers to optimize system performance and ensure reliability under high-throughput workloads.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement backend architecture for real-time news processing systems.
• Build and optimize high-performance data ingestion pipelines.
• Architect and maintain robust database infrastructure, including PostgreSQL and Elasticsearch.
• Develop and maintain API endpoints for internal tool integration.
• Implement caching solutions to ensure low-latency data access.
• Monitor and optimize system performance for scalability and reliability.
• Manage data retention, archival strategies, and backup systems.

Must Haves

• 7+ years of backend engineering experience with expertise in Python.
• Proficiency with FastAPI or similar async frameworks and concurrent programming.
• Advanced PostgreSQL knowledge, including query optimization and high-availability setups.
• Experience with Elasticsearch, including index optimization and query design.
• Hands-on experience with caching systems like Redis.
• Strong understanding of data processing pipelines and real-time systems.
• Proven ability to write clean, testable, and maintainable code.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work in a partly remote team.

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with event-driven architectures and message queuing systems like Kafka or RabbitMQ.
• Experience with WebSockets for real-time data delivery.
• Experience with monitoring tools like Datadog, Grafana, or ELK stack.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, Docker, and cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Knowledge of microservices architecture and API gateway implementation.
• Experience in financial or trading systems is a plus.

Interview Process

1. In our first round with the RTI Engineering Team Lead: explain the opportunity, assess cultural fit, short technical screen, explain the take home
2. Take Home Assessment and Presentation
3. Tech Interview with our Sr Engineer
4. Additional rounds may be conducted as necessary with other team members or our partners.

Throughout the process, you'll be assessed for cultural fit through our company values:

1. Drive - We believe the best team members are passionate about what they do, and that propels them to greater heights in their career. It drives them to be part of the best teams where they are exposed to the best ideas.
2. Ownership - We aim to give ownership interest to as many people in the firm as possible, but in return, we expect everyone to act like owners. "Not my responsibility" is a repugnant phrase to us.
3. Judgement - We look for team members who consistently look at the big picture and spend their time on the activities that most drive PnL. They are pragmatic with their time; they don't stick to their narrow domain if it doesn't move the needle.
4. Openness - We want a culture where we proactively share information with one another and challenge each other with constructive debate to reach the truth.
5. Competence - We value people with high intellectual horsepower. They have already become an expert in one or more domains and learn extremely quickly when in unfamiliar territory.

We are a rapidly growing crypto hedge fund, 2 years old, managing a 9-figure AUM, generating 200%+ annualized returns with a 4 Sharpe.

We've grown to a team of ~40 across Trading & Research, Tech, and Operations.

This is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a rapidly growing team and industry. Each member of our team can make large, impactful contributions -- for which we compensate very well, with long-term upside.