Software Engineer (C++/Java) - Databento

Software Engineer (C++/Java)

Databento is seeking a mid-level or senior Software Engineer to join their core engineering team. This role is crucial for developing and maintaining Databento's market data platform, which serves the modern finance industry.

About Databento

The financial industry is experiencing rapid growth, but its data infrastructure often lags behind. Databento is revolutionizing this by providing a unified API for real-time and historical market data across futures, options, and equities. By controlling the entire data stack, Databento offers the performance and reliability required by leading trading firms with a significantly simplified developer experience.

Responsibilities

• Own and maintain the Java client library, ensuring robustness, testability, and ease of integration for external users.
• Design, develop, and maintain high-performance server applications in C/C++.
• Develop message parsers and feed handlers for direct market data feeds from trading venues.
• Optimize existing codebase for high throughput (millions of messages per second, up to 40+ gigabits) and low latency (nanoseconds).
• Implement tools and libraries for petabyte-scale data processing and analysis.
• Collaborate with the systems team on build, deployment, and CI/CD best practices.
• Implement monitoring solutions and improve application uptime.
• Ensure smooth feature rollouts and updates.

Preferred Background

• 5+ years of full-time software engineering experience, ideally at a trading firm, tech company, or high-growth startup.
• Strong proficiency in both C/C++ and Java.
• Experience with C# is a plus.
• Experience designing APIs with a focus on intuitive, developer-friendly interfaces.
• Familiarity with open-source best practices (release management, versioning, changelogs, issue triage, backward compatibility).
• Knowledge of systems programming, algorithms, data structures, multithreading, networked I/O, serialization, CPU architecture, kernel, and compilers.
• Experience with multiprocess environments.
• Comfortable using lldb/gdb.
• Good communication skills and a strong work ethic for a remote workplace.
• Interest in low-level optimization and performance engineering.
• Interest in financial data or algorithmic trading.

Compensation

The base salary range for this role is $150,000–$250,000, benchmarked to Tier 1 locations. Total compensation may also include bonuses, commissions, and equity.