Summary: Are you an engineer who loves building systems that are both powerful and elegant? Topstep is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to own and evolve critical components of our trading platform. In this role, you'll design and build the systems that power real-time trading, market data delivery, and brokerage integrations for thousands of active traders.
You'll work in a modern .NET stack, building cloud-native services that handle high-throughput, low-latency workloads. This isn't just about shipping features-you'll shape architectural decisions, establish engineering standards, and ensure our platform scales reliably as we grow. You'll own your systems end-to-end, from initial design through production operations.
This role is ideal for someone who combines strong technical depth with pragmatic engineering judgment. You'll balance the need for robust, maintainable systems with the reality of evolving business requirements. You'll contribute to technical strategy, mentor other engineers, and help define what engineering excellence means at Topstep.
Key Responsibilities - Design and build services and APIs that power core trading platform capabilities.
- Own features end-to-end, from technical design through production deployment, monitoring, and iteration.
- Collaborate with product and design to translate user needs into scalable, maintainable technical solutions.
- Contribute to system architecture decisions, establishing patterns and practices that other teams can follow.
- Write clean, well-tested code with strong focus on reliability, performance, and operational excellence.
- Participate in on-call rotations, respond to incidents, and drive continuous improvement of system reliability.
- Build and maintain observability into your systems through metrics, logging, and distributed tracing.
- Mentor engineers through code reviews, pairing sessions, and sharing knowledge about system design and best practices.
- Balance technical debt with feature delivery, making thoughtful trade-offs based on business priorities and technical constraints.
- Contribute to engineering culture through documentation, tooling improvements, and process refinements.
Required Qualifications and Key Competencies - 5+ years of software engineering experience building and shipping production systems at scale.
- Strong proficiency in C# and .NET ecosystem with experience building production services.
- Experience designing service boundaries, API versioning, and event-driven patterns in a microservices or modular architecture.
- Solid database experience with PostgreSQL or SQL Server, including schema design, query optimization, and understanding of transactional behavior.
- Experience with observability tools and distributed tracing in production environments.
- Proven track record of owning production systems including monitoring, debugging, and incident response.
- Experience with container technologies (Docker) and cloud platforms (AWS).
- Strong testing mindset with practical experience across unit, integration, and system testing.
- Excellent problem-solving skills with ability to debug complex issues across multiple systems.
- Clear communication skills with ability to explain technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Comfort working in fast-paced environments with evolving priorities and ambiguous requirements.
Nice to Have - Kubernetes experience (EKS or equivalent), Helm, or GitOps (ArgoCD) tooling.
- Experience with real-time or async messaging (Redis, NATS, Kafka, etc.) OR real-time comms (SignalR/WebSockets).
- Background in high-throughput, low-latency systems or performance optimization.
- Distributed tracing and performance tuning in multi-service systems.
- Incident leadership (RCA, remediation follow-ups).
- Previous work in compliance-constrained environments.
- Previous work in financial services, fintech, or compliance-regulated industries.
- Understanding of trading systems, market data, or brokerage operation.
Company Culture & Perks - Topstep is an engaging working environment which ranges from fully remote to hybrid. We foster a culture of collaboration with cameras on during meetings and a robust Slack environment for communication.
- Seven Company-paid Holidays and generous Family Leave. Paid time off is front-loaded.
- Competitive 401(k) matching, health, dental, and vision insurance is offered for full time employees.
- Vacations are encouraged with a bonus for taking 5 consecutive days. Employee referrals are bonused. Topstep offers a food and groceries budget and contributes towards health and wellness.
New Hire Base Salary Range - $175,000-$210,000.
- Bonus: This position is eligible for a performance-based bonus as provided by the plan terms and governing documents.
- The compensation offered will take into account internal compensation structure and may vary depending on the candidate's geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience among other factors.
Equal Opportunity Employer Topstep is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where all employees and applicants are valued. All qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or veteran status, in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws.
Interested in the role? Apply today with your resume and cover letter! At this time immigration sponsorship is not available for this position (including H-1B, STEM OPT training plans, etc.). 
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