Senior Network Engineer — Chicago, IL

Senior Network Engineer, Trading Infrastructure

Location: Chicago

Type: Full time, Permanent

Team: Network Engineering / Network Automation

A leading global trading firm is seeking a Senior Network Engineer to design, build, operate and evolve the network infrastructure behind its trading business. This is a hands-on role for an engineer who enjoys solving hard problems across low latency networking, automation, WAN connectivity and global data centre environments.

The successful candidate will work on critical projects that help the firm scale, improve performance and stay ahead in a highly competitive trading environment. No financial markets experience is required. Strong networking expertise, technical curiosity and a drive to improve complex systems matter most.

The opportunity

The network is central to the firm’s trading platform. The successful candidate will help ensure that global connectivity, colocation environments and data centre networks remain fast, resilient, observable and operationally efficient.

The role offers broad exposure to a demanding network estate, spanning low latency trading infrastructure, global WAN links, data centre networking and colocation connectivity. The successful candidate will have real ownership of meaningful projects, from identifying improvements through to design, implementation and operational support.

What the role involves

• Deploy, monitor, troubleshoot and manage network infrastructure across global data centres, colocation sites and WAN environments.

• Design new colocation deployments and improve connectivity, resilience and performance across existing colocation environments.

• Improve the design, performance and scalability of the firm’s data centre network.

• Identify, recommend and implement network optimisations that improve speed, reliability and operational efficiency.

• Support planned maintenance activity, including migrations, expansions, hardware upgrades and software upgrades.

• Provide technical expertise and support to a high performance trading floor operating in a competitive market making environment.

• Ensure WAN connectivity is resilient, performant and effectively integrated across the firm’s global data centre footprint.

• Contribute to capacity planning, traffic flow optimisation and long term network scalability.

• Advance the firm’s approach to intelligent network automation, reducing manual effort and improving consistency.

• Tackle technical debt, simplify complex environments and improve the maintainability of network systems.

Who the firm is looking for

The ideal candidate is a strong network engineer with broad experience across enterprise and performance critical environments. They will be comfortable working across LAN and global WAN networks, troubleshooting complex issues and improving systems through automation and thoughtful design.

• Strong network and performance monitoring skills, with experience in network capacity planning.

• Experience working across LAN and global WAN environments.

• Experience with Cisco and Arista network equipment is preferred.

• Strong troubleshooting skills across network transport protocols, including TCP and UDP.

• Deep understanding of routing protocols, including OSPF and BGP.

• Strong knowledge of network protocols, including Multicast, Spanning Tree and HSRP.

• Experience with network automation and strong Python scripting skills are preferred.

• Experience with network monitoring and alerting systems.

• A belief that clear documentation is essential to successful project delivery.

• A strong improvement mindset, with the motivation to challenge complexity and push through friction.

Apply now for an confidential conversation