AI Engineer
About the job
- Experience building software with large language models and agents, including tools, context, orchestration, and model application programming interfaces.
- Familiarity with coding agents and the tradeoffs between different models, providers, and harnesses.
- Comfort working in Python, C++, and/or Java.
- Experience building software used by other engineers or end users.
- Comfort working across application code, developer tooling, infrastructure, and user-facing software.
- Demonstrated ability to take ambiguous problems from idea through production.
- Hands-on use of this technology outside of work, including projects or experiments built independently.
- Build agent tooling used by CTC's engineers, quants, and traders.
- Bring new models, coding agents, and agent harnesses into CTC as the ecosystem evolves.
- Build common infrastructure to support these tools, including inference, configuration, integrations, tracing, and access controls.
- Build AI tools and interfaces for specific roles and workflows across the firm.
- Improve the performance and reliability of systems, from shared services to model inference.
- Prototype new uses for agents in areas such as research, simulation, and trading.
- Work directly with users to understand their workflows and guide what to build next.
- Experience with model evaluation or benchmarking.
- Experience with inference optimization, fine-tuning, or post-training.
- Experience in financial markets or trading environments.
- Experience with quantitative research, market data, simulation, or backtesting.
About the company
Chicago Trading Company trades options with its own money, standing ready to buy and sell contracts tied to stocks, stock indexes, commodities, and interest rates so other investors can trade when they need to. It began on Chicago's trading floors in US index options and became one of the firms that exchanges such as Cboe and CME appoint to keep prices quoted in their markets. Its traders, quantitative researchers, and engineers build pricing models and automated systems that quote prices and manage risk, and the firm earns money from the small gap between the prices at which it buys and sells. Five options traders founded it in 1995, and it is based in Chicago.
Company Size
501-1,000
Company Stage
Debt Financing
Total Funding
$300M
Headquarters
Chicago, Illinois
Founded
1995
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Pay tracks results: CTC London's 2025 trading income rose 78% and key staff bonuses nearly doubled, per August 2026 accounts.
- Entry pay is high: CTC pays 2027 graduate traders and engineers a $200,000 base and summer interns $16,500 a month.
- Engineers drive its plan: CTC aims to automate more trading, and 13 of 24 openings in October 2026 are engineering.
What critics are saying
- Cuts hit London: CTC London's August 2026 filing shows office staff halved to 18 and £2 million paid in severance.
- A bigger rival keeps growing: in March 2026, Dutch market maker Optiver reported trading income up 30% to €4.6 billion.
- No Asia office means night shifts: CTC's Asia-hours options traders work 4pm to 1am Chicago time, Sunday through Thursday.
What makes Chicago Trading Company unique
- Technologists sit at the top: CTO Josh Schubkegel became co-CEO in January 2026, alongside 20-year CTC veteran Lauren Rauch.
- It backs venues needing market makers: CTC Ventures' 22 investments include stock exchange MEMX and sports-betting exchange Sporttrade.
- Non-traders get flexibility: CTC's job posts say every team except Trading follows a hybrid workplace model.
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Benefits
- Health Insurance
- Parental Leave
- Wellness Program
- Flexible Work Hours