Back to jobs
New

Engineering Manager, Backend

Chicago, IL

Disclaimer: Please be advised that the most accurate and up-to-date information about our open roles—including job descriptions, compensation, and benefits—can only be guaranteed on our official job board. For the latest listings and details, please visit: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/ninjatrader.

JOIN US ON OUR MISSION TO BECOME THE #1 RETAIL TRADING PLATFORM IN THE WORLD

Welcome to the dynamic world of NinjaTrader! As an industry-leading trading platform and futures broker, we're empowering traders to take control of their financial destiny. How do we do it? We provide cutting-edge products and services that enhance the trading journey. Whether a seasoned pro or just starting out, NinjaTrader equips traders with award-winning software and brokerage services to navigate the world's leading financial markets with confidence.  

Our growth story is nothing short of exhilarating. Since 2003, NinjaTrader has been dedicated to understanding and supporting traders on their journey toward trading triumph. Through those efforts, our user base has grown to over 2 million users and we have become the number one rated futures brokerage worldwide. 

But we're not stopping there. We're constantly evolving, pushing boundaries, and modernizing the futures industry. Our commitment to innovation means users will always have access to dynamic tools, real-time support, and a community of like-minded traders.  

So, why work at NinjaTrader? Here, you're not just part of a team; you're part of a movement. We empower employees to reach new heights in their careers by providing a dynamic culture focused on social connection, professional development, and employee recognition initiatives. Sounds too good to be true? Take it from our employees. 

Join us as we redefine what's possible in trading, advocate for our customers, and continue our journey toward becoming the world's top retail-focused trading platform in the world.  

What you'll do:

We’re looking for a seasoned engineering leader to build and scale our FCM Operations engineering squad at NinjaTrader. This is a hands-on leadership role with broad scope—owning the strategy, execution, and team growth behind the systems that power our brokerage operations backbone. Your squad owns the critical workflows that keep our FCM running: customer onboarding and identity verification (CIP/KYC/AML), treasury and money movement services, account lifecycle management, tax certification (W8/W9), regulatory data retention, and the cross-system process improvements that make internal teams across Accounts, Treasury, FinOps, and Compliance more efficient every day.

As a leader in our technology organization, your team’s work will directly impact how NinjaTrader serves customers from their first account application through every funding, withdrawal, and compliance touchpoint across the account lifecycle. You will partner closely with compliance, new accounts, brokerage operations, treasury, and finance stakeholders to deliver solutions that balance operational efficiency, regulatory rigor, and customer experience while championing the use of AI and automation to modernize workflows that have traditionally been manual and labor-intensive.

In this role you will:

  • Lead, mentor, and manage a growing team of engineers in a regulated financial environment
  • Assume an active role in the career development of direct reports with regular 1:1s, coaching, and performance feedback—building a team that understands both the engineering craft and the operational realities of running an FCM
  • Own the execution of the FCM Operations roadmap in partnership with Product, Compliance, and Brokerage Operations, ensuring alignment with technical strategy, regulatory requirements, and team capacity
  • Drive the modernization of customer onboarding systems including CIP service integrations, new account application review workflows, and KYC/AML verification processes—moving from manual review toward intelligent, automated decision pipelines
  • Lead the development of self-service account maintenance tools for end users and internal process enhancements for post-account-creation support, reducing operational burden on brokerage teams
  • Champion the use of AI to optimize operational workflows—identifying opportunities where intelligent automation can reduce manual review, accelerate processing times, and improve accuracy across onboarding, compliance screening, and account operations
  • Ensure W8/W9 tax certification and IRS reporting processes are reliable, accurate, and automated where possible
  • Own data retention and hygiene strategies, ensuring data alignment and consistency across multiple systems—critical for regulatory compliance, audit readiness, and operational integrity
  • Guide and actively shape architectural decisions with Senior+ engineers, review code as needed, and ensure cloud-native best practices for all new development on GCP/Kubernetes
  • Oversee release processes and CI/CD workflows, ensuring smooth deployments with appropriate change management controls for regulated systems
  • Participate in our engineering on-call rotation as a manager and uphold engineering quality and execution standards, including code reviews, test coverage, release pipelines, observability, and incident response
  • Hire top-tier engineering talent and contribute to the evolution of our engineering organization as we scale

What you'll need:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience
  • 8+ years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years in engineering leadership roles managing engineers directly
  • Demonstrated experience in financial services, brokerage, or fintech with practical understanding of KYC/AML processes, money movement systems, and the regulatory obligations of operating a brokerage or FCM
  • Proven experience delivering production-grade systems in cloud environments (GCP or AWS) with modern deployment practices
  • Track record of partnering cross-functionally with compliance, operations, finance, and product stakeholders to deliver technology solutions in regulated environments
  • Genuine enthusiasm for applying AI and automation to modernize operational workflows—you see manual compliance and operations processes as engineering problems waiting to be solved
  • Demonstrated ability to lead teams through growth, ambiguity, and change—comfortable making decisions with incomplete information and iterating quickly
  • Excellent communication skills, with the ability to align technical execution with business priorities and translate between engineering, compliance, and operations teams
  • Strong collaborative skills—you build trust naturally with both engineers and business stakeholders
  • Operates with a strong sense of ownership and accountability

Bonus points for:

  • Direct experience at a futures commission merchant (FCM), clearing firm, or broker-dealer operating under CFTC/NFA or SEC/FINRA regulatory frameworks
  • Familiarity with CIP/KYC/AML vendor integrations and identity verification service providers
  • Background in building internal tooling and self-service platforms that improve operational efficiency at scale
  • Familiarity with Node.js, TypeScript, React, Python, C++, Java, or Scala in production environments

Compensation:

The salary range for this role will be $160,000.00 - $210,000.00 USD. In addition, this position will also receive an annual target bonus of 15%. Bonus pay at NinjaTrader is based on individual performance (50%) as well as company/team performance (50%).

Salary and bonus earnings are only two components of the total compensation package offered by NinjaTrader. NinjaTrader offers a 401K plan through ADP under which the company will match up to 3.5% of employee contributions. Annual paid time off allowance accrues at a rate of 23 days per year (some positions may qualify for more) plus seven paid holidays.

Location:

This role is based in Chicago, IL. We are not open to remote candidates for this role

Hybrid:

For Chicago-based employees, we follow a hybrid work schedule: In-office Tuesday through Thursday, with remote work on Mondays and Fridays. In addition to these weekly remote days, we offer:

  • 20 additional flex remote days annually
  • 5 Company Wide Office-Optional weeks tied to major holidays

Our Core Benefits Include:

  • Generous PTO
  • 7 Paid Holidays Annually + 5 Conditional Holidays Annually
  • 1 Service Day Annually
  • 401k with 3.5% Company Match
  • Paid Parental Bonding Leave
  • Health, Vision, Dental Coverage
  • Life and Disability Insurance Covered 100% by NinjaTrader

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression, or veteran status. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.

Create a Job Alert

Interested in building your career at NinjaTrader? Get future opportunities sent straight to your email.

Apply for this job

*

indicates a required field

Resume/CV

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Cover Letter

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Select...
Select...

We are only able to hire full-time employees in certain states within the US. Please share your state of residence so we can properly communicate expectations. 

Select...
Select...
Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in NinjaTrader’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

Select...
Select...
Race & Ethnicity Definitions

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability

Form CC-305
Page 1 of 1
OMB Control Number 1250-0005
Expires 04/30/2026

Why are you being asked to complete this form?

We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress towards this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.

Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at www.dol.gov/ofccp.

How do you know if you have a disability?

A disability is a condition that substantially limits one or more of your “major life activities.” If you have or have ever had such a condition, you are a person with a disability. Disabilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
  • Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
  • Blind or low vision
  • Cancer (past or present)
  • Cardiovascular or heart disease
  • Celiac disease
  • Cerebral palsy
  • Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
  • Diabetes
  • Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
  • Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
  • Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
  • Intellectual or developmental disability
  • Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
  • Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
  • Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
  • Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
  • Neurodivergence, for example, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
  • Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
  • Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
  • Short stature (dwarfism)
  • Traumatic brain injury
Select...

PUBLIC BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. This survey should take about 5 minutes to complete.