Vice President of Software Engineering

Location: Chicago, IL

About the Opportunity Take the helm of a sophisticated engineering organization powering high-concurrency, real-time financial trading environments. As a key member of the executive team, you will drive the modernization of mission-critical systems and lead a large-scale department through its next phase of technical and operational excellence. This is a high-impact role for a transformative leader ready to oversee the architecture and delivery of global-scale execution platforms.

Responsibilities

• Strategic Technical Leadership: Direct the engineering vision for a comprehensive suite of client-facing interfaces and the underlying real-time engines that facilitate trade execution and market data processing.

• Organizational Scaling: Provide mentorship and professional development for a high-performing layer of Engineering Directors, fostering a culture of technical rigor and accountability.

• Operational Excellence: Champion initiatives to enhance system reliability, deployment security, and overall predictability within the software development life cycle.

• Platform Evolution: Oversee the transition toward modern, scalable architectures capable of supporting 24x7 high-availability financial operations.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with the C-suite and product leadership to align technical roadmaps with commercial objectives and market demands.

Requirements (Must-have)

• Executive Leadership: Demonstrated success as a "leader of leaders," specifically managing a department of 100+ engineers through intermediate management layers.

• Fintech Domain Expertise: Deep experience within the financial technology sector, specifically involving high-growth platforms, order management systems (OMS), or execution infrastructure.

• Distributed Systems at Scale: Proven track record of managing high-availability, low-latency distributed systems that operate in a continuous, global environment.

• Process Transformation: Experience implementing rigorous engineering standards and improving delivery metrics in a complex technical ecosystem.

• Communication: Exceptional executive presence with the ability to translate complex technical challenges into strategic business outcomes for stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications (Nice-to-have)

• Experience leading large-scale legacy-to-cloud or monolith-to-microservices migrations.

• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.

• Active involvement in the broader engineering community or a history of driving technical innovation at the industry level.

Compensation & Benefits

• Executive-level base salary and performance-based incentives.

• Comprehensive executive benefits package including health, retirement, and equity participation.