C++ Developer; Tier 1 Prop Trading Firm

Venture Search has partnered with a global electronic trading firm, that is seeking a Software Developer to join its Chicago office, focused on building and optimising ultra-low-latency trading systems. This role is ideal for engineers who are passionate about high-performance C++ development and enjoy working close to the hardware, networks, and real‑time trading environments.

You will collaborate closely with traders, quantitative researchers, and infrastructure teams to design and maintain systems where nanoseconds matter.

• Design, develop, and maintain high-performance C++ software for low‑latency trading and market‑making systems
• Optimise system performance across the full stack, including CPU, memory, networking, and OS tuning
• Build and enhance real‑time trading, pricing, and execution systems
• Work closely with traders to implement and refine trading logic in production environments
• Profile, debug, and optimise latency‑critical code paths
• Develop tools for monitoring, testing, and performance analysis of live systems
• Contribute to system reliability, fault tolerance, and operational excellence
• Follow best practices in software engineering, testing, and code review

• Strong proficiency in modern C++ (C++17/20)
• Deep understanding of low‑latency and high‑performance systems
• Solid knowledge of data structures, algorithms, and concurrency
• Experience with Linux systems programming
• Familiarity with networking concepts (TCP/UDP, multicast)
• Strong debugging and performance profiling skills

• Experience in electronic trading, market making, or high‑frequency trading
• Knowledge of CPU architecture, cache behavior, and memory management
• Experience with lock‑free programming and multithreaded systems
• Familiarity with kernel bypass, RDMA, or hardware acceleration