Platform Specialist

Department: Application Engineer

Position Overview:

The Low-Latency Platform Architect will be part of a talented global team focused on enterprise or low latency solutions. The candidate must demonstrate superb technical competency in delivering a mission critical infrastructure and ensuring the highest levels of availability, performance, and security. 

The candidate will be responsible for research, design, L3 support, and documentation for Squarepoint’s low latency infrastructure. This will involve collaborating with our business partners, application owners, clients, vendors, and internal teams (Platform, Network, Application Support, Application Development, Quants, etc.) to deliver end to end solutions that can meet the needs for today and scale to meet the needs for tomorrow.  This candidate will be flexible and flourish working in a high paced and challenging environment with capacity to grow and learn from peers. 

• Design, document, and enhance platform related services including servers, storage, and cloud
• Provide concise and professional documentation.
• Project delivery/management collaborating with internal and external partners.
• Provide L3 escalation support to remediate performance and availability issues.
• Identify areas of improvement before they become a problem.

Required Qualifications:

• 8+ years working with Linux (RHEL/Rocky/CentOS/OEL preferred) in an enterprise environment with the following areas of focus: operations, systems engineering and systems performance.
• System tuning (memory/CPU/network) for low latency applications.
• Full understanding of network protocols such as TCP, UDP, broadcast, and multicast and how to properly tune for each.
• Low latency network interfaces and kernel bypass:  Solarflare with onload preferred.
• Physical server architecture understanding differences between CPU chipsets and when is the right time for each (Intel/AMD/ARM).
• Highly motivated and a keen eye for scripting and automation preferring in Python, Rust, or Bash.
• Well-organized, proactive, resourceful, able to handle a fast-paced environment, question the status quo, accountable and possesses an ownership mindset.
• Critical thinking and problem-solving skills to tackle troubleshooting the unknown, glitches and the obscure.
• Strong communication: verbal and written.
• Experience with identifying performance bottlenecks: at a low-level, induced by the OS, from software architecture, or on the network layer
• Degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or related Information Technology experience.

Nice to have:

• Kernel development with ability to modify stock kernels adding custom features.
• Trade flow analysis: Understanding protocols used by various exchanges:  FIX, BOE, OUCH/ITCH, PILLAR, SBE, OMEX
• Experience with configuration management tools i.e. Ansible, Chef, and Terraform.
• Familiarity with different network switch vendors and different switch architectures.
• Experience with working with FPGA based applications and L1 network design.

The minimum base salary for this role is $60,000 if located in New York. This expectation is based on available information at the time of posting. This role may be eligible for discretionary bonuses, which could constitute a significant portion of total compensation. This role may also be eligible for benefits, such as health, dental, and other wellness plans, as well as 401(k) contributions. Successful candidates’ compensation and benefits will be determined in consideration of various factors.