About the role
What You’ll Do
As a Trade Support Engineer, you'll sit on the front line of our trading operations, working shoulder-to-shoulder with traders, developers, and quantitative researchers to keep the production trading environment healthy, stable, and fast. This is a hands-on, high-impact role: when the markets are open, you are our first line of defense.
Day to day, you will:
- Monitor the production trading environment and respond to alerts in real time.
- Triage, resolve, or escalate technical incidents under time pressure (Level 1/Level 2).
- Deploy and configure proprietary and third-party trading applications.
- Investigate trade and position breaks, and support back-office operations such as trade capture and reconciliation.
- Assist with risk and compliance reporting.
- Occasional handling of datacenter and trading desk hardware.
- Write scripts to automate repetitive workflows and accelerate your own troubleshooting.
- Collaborate closely with traders, clearing firms, exchanges, and vendor partners to meet business objectives.
Because this role covers the trading day end to end, it includes early market-open coverage and participation in an on-call / weekend rotation.
What You’ll Need
- 2+ years of full-time, professional experience in Trade Support, Trade Operations, Application Support, or a similar production-support role.
- Strong proficiency with both Windows and Linux, comfortable in desktop and command-line environments.
- Solid scripting skills in one or more languages (e.g., Python, PowerShell, Bash) to automate tasks and analyze data.
- Working knowledge of SQL for querying trade, position, and reference data during investigations.
- Familiarity with data formats like JSON, XML, and Parquet.
- Familiarity with current code generation AI tools.
- A track record of troubleshooting application and OS-level issues calmly under pressure.
- Strong communication skills, with a focus on resolving uncertainty and coordinating across traders, vendors, and internal teams.
- Detail-oriented, with a strong bias toward documentation and repeatable process.
- Ability to manage shifting priorities in a fast-moving environment.
- Ability to work on-site in our Chicago office and participate in early-hours and on-call coverage as needed.
- Must have valid, ongoing, unrestricted authorization to work in the United States without the need for employer-sponsored or self-initiated immigration filings.
Preferred (We'll Train the Right Person)
- Experience with exchange-traded derivatives and a solid grasp of the trade lifecycle.
- Hands-on experience interfacing with exchanges and clearing firms.
- Familiarity with order entry and market data protocols (e.g., FIX, FIXP, MDP3, BOE, ITCH).
- Exposure to observability tooling and incident-management practices.
Applicants with 3+ years of directly applicable experience are eligible for consideration at the Senior level.
What You’ll Get
- Competitive salaries and performance bonuses
- Top-tier medical and dental coverage
- Relocation assistance packages
- Generous vacation policy
- Training opportunities and continuing education
- Catered lunch, snacks, and beverages
- Group outings and company parties
- Casual dress environment
Salary range
- $87,500-145,000
- Senior-level candidates will be eligible for a base salary of $145,000-177,500
- This position is also eligible for an annual discretionary bonus.
Our Vision
Valkyrie’s vision is to be an organization where curious, driven, and innovative people are able to compete and win in the world’s most competitive landscape – the financial markets. Daily competition in the financial markets provides the ideal arena to push ourselves further as we are ever striving to grow, improve, and win. We recognize that there are extraordinary opportunities to be had every day, and by exploring, collaborating, and building, we can accomplish remarkable results together.