Disclaimer: Please be advised that the most accurate and up-to-date information about our open roles—including job descriptions, compensation, and benefits—can only be guaranteed on our official job board. For the latest listings and details, please visit: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/ninjatrader.
JOIN US ON OUR MISSION TO BECOME THE #1 RETAIL TRADING PLATFORM IN THE WORLD
Welcome to the dynamic world of NinjaTrader! As an industry-leading trading platform and futures broker, we're empowering traders to take control of their financial destiny. How do we do it? We provide cutting-edge products and services that enhance the trading journey. Whether a seasoned pro or just starting out, NinjaTrader equips traders with award-winning software and brokerage services to navigate the world's leading financial markets with confidence.
Our growth story is nothing short of exhilarating. Since 2003, NinjaTrader has been dedicated to understanding and supporting traders on their journey toward trading triumph. Through those efforts, our user base has grown to over 2 million users and we have become the number one rated futures brokerage worldwide.
But we're not stopping there. We're constantly evolving, pushing boundaries, and modernizing the futures industry. Our commitment to innovation means users will always have access to dynamic tools, real-time support, and a community of like-minded traders.
So, why work at NinjaTrader? Here, you're not just part of a team; you're part of a movement. We empower employees to reach new heights in their careers by providing a dynamic culture focused on social connection, professional development, and employee recognition initiatives. Sounds too good to be true? Take it from our employees.
Join us as we redefine what's possible in trading, advocate for our customers, and continue our journey toward becoming the world's top retail-focused trading platform in the world.
What you'll do:
Your data-driven mindset and ability to work with large-scale data systems enable NinjaTrader to serve customers better, identify new opportunities, and improve processes. As an accomplished data engineer joining the Data & Analytics team, this is a terrific opportunity to become part of a fast-growing, revolutionary fintech company shaping the future of retail futures trading.
At NinjaTrader, you'll play a key role in designing and operationalizing the modern data platform that powers our analytics, trading tools, and AI initiatives. This role is remote-friendly and reports to the Manager, Data & Analytics Engineering.
As a Sr. Data Engineer, your primary responsibility is to stay one step ahead of your fellow team members by providing the platform, tools, and infrastructure they need to deliver deployable solutions to real-world business problems. This goes beyond maintaining pipelines—it's about delivering best-in-class data architecture, scalable workflows, and real-time solutions that power trading, product development, and machine learning.
In this role you will:
- Design, build, and maintain robust data pipelines and data lake architecture for both batch and real-time streaming use cases, including high-volume, low-latency data processing
- Improve observability, alerting, and SLOs across data systems so pipelines are easier to monitor and issues are caught early
- Optimize ETL/ELT workflows for performance, scalability, and fault tolerance
- Develop dbt workflows to onboard Evaluation Partners and create end-of-day reporting for partner analysis
- Build and support event-driven architectures and scalable platform components
- Contribute to the orchestration and automation of workflows
- Integrate complex financial APIs and third-party data sources into internal systems
- Collaborate with analytics, product, and ML engineers to develop and deploy reliable data products
- Work on feature pipelines and model-ready data to support ML engineers
- Promote high standards in code quality, testing, and platform reliability
- Participate in Agile ceremonies and foster a collaborative, growth-oriented team culture
What you'll need:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field
- 5+ years of experience in data engineering, platform engineering, or backend development
- Strong skills in SQL and Python for building and testing data solutions
- Hands-on experience with GCP and GCP data products (BigQuery, Cloud SQL, Cloud Storage, etc.)
- Experience with AWS cloud services (S3, Glue, Athena, Kinesis) in addition to GCP; bonus for EMR
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, and version-controlled deployment workflows (e.g., Terraform, GitOps)
- Hands-on dbt experience building and maintaining dbt projects (models, tests, macros, documentation, CI)
- Proficiency with workflow orchestration tools (e.g., Airflow, Prefect)
- Knowledge of data lake architecture, including file formats (Parquet, Avro) and open table formats (Apache Iceberg)
- Familiarity with event-driven and service-oriented architecture
- A track record of building automated, well-tested, and observable data systems
- Comfortable working both independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced Agile environment
Bonus points for:
- Hands-on Kubernetes experience, especially around data workloads and containerized pipelines
- Experience with streaming technologies (e.g., Kafka, Spark Streaming, Flink) and comfort working with high-volume, low-latency data flows
- Experience with change data capture tools (e.g., Debezium, Kafka Connect) and real-time data integration patterns
- Experience with BI tools like Looker Studio or QuickSight
- Experience with observability and monitoring tooling (e.g., Datadog, Grafana, Prometheus)
- Background in fintech, trading, or derivatives
Compensation:
The salary range for this role will be $100,000.00 - $150,000.00 USD. In addition, this position will also receive an annual target bonus of 10%. Bonus pay at NinjaTrader is based on individual performance (50%) as well as company/team performance (50%).
Salary and bonus earnings are only two components of the total compensation package offered by NinjaTrader. NinjaTrader offers a 401K plan through ADP under which the company will match up to 3.5% of employee contributions. Annual paid time off allowance accrues at a rate of 18 days per year (some positions may qualify for more) plus seven paid holidays.
Location:
This role is based in Chicago, IL. There may be remote flexibility for exceptional candidates in the following states: California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Washington DC, Wisconsin.
Hybrid:
For Chicago-based employees, we follow a hybrid work schedule: In-office Tuesday through Thursday, with remote work on Mondays and Fridays. In addition to these weekly remote days, we offer:
- 20 additional flex remote days annually
- 5 Company Wide Office-Optional weeks tied to major holidays
Our Core Benefits Include:
- Generous PTO
- 7 Paid Holidays Annually + 5 Conditional Holidays Annually
- 1 Service Day Annually
- 401k with 3.5% Company Match
- Paid Parental Bonding Leave
- Health, Vision, Dental Coverage
- Life and Disability Insurance Covered 100% by NinjaTrader
We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression, or veteran status. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field
- 5+ years of experience in data engineering, platform engineering, or backend development
- Strong skills in SQL and Python
- Hands-on experience with GCP and GCP data products (BigQuery, Cloud SQL, Cloud Storage)
- Experience with AWS cloud services (S3, Glue, Athena, Kinesis)
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Terraform, GitOps)
- Hands-on dbt experience (models, tests, macros, documentation, CI)
- Proficiency with workflow orchestration tools (e.g., Airflow, Prefect)
- Knowledge of data lake architecture and file formats (Parquet, Avro) and open table formats (Apache Iceberg)
- Familiarity with event-driven and service-oriented architecture
- Proven track record building automated, well-tested, observable data systems
- Comfortable working independently and collaboratively in an Agile environment
- Hands-on Kubernetes experience (around data workloads and containerized pipelines)
- Experience with streaming technologies (Kafka, Spark Streaming, Flink)
- Experience with change data capture tools (Debezium, Kafka Connect)
- Experience with BI tools like Looker Studio or QuickSight
- Experience with observability tooling (Datadog, Grafana, Prometheus)
- Background in fintech, trading, or derivatives
What the Team is Saying
NinjaTrader Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Healthcare Strength — Company materials highlight medical, dental, and vision coverage, with life and disability insurance covered by the employer. Some benefits descriptions also reference mental health support and flexible spending options.
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Retirement Support — A 401(k) plan with company matching is part of the package. This indicates structured support for long-term savings within total compensation.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — The package calls out generous PTO and paid holidays, alongside standard job-protected family medical leave. Time-away benefits are positioned as a defined component of the offering.
NinjaTrader Insights
What We Do
More than 2 million futures traders trust NinjaTrader's award-winning software and brokerage services to help them trade smarter. Since 2003, we've been building better futures for all traders by making futures trading more accessible, scalable, and user-friendly. As a bold, innovative thought leader in the trading space, we build products and services that empower active futures traders to easily analyze and react to data from the world's leading financial markets. Veteran and new futures traders alike look to us for our always-on support, daily free education and analysis, access to developer apps, and much more. We believe in the power of innovation to drive futures trading forward. Together, we continue to redefine what's possible in trading, advocate for our customers, and provide the best tools, support, and experiences to the fast-growing retail futures trading community. Located in Chicago, our entrepreneurial, employee-centric culture is inspiring, innovative, and inviting. We're committed to diversity, equity, and inclusivity, so our team members feel at ease to be themselves and empowered to deliver the work they do best.
Why Work With Us
Our team members are our #1 asset and the signature ingredient to our success. When you join NinjaTrader, you become part of an innovative, forward-looking community that encourages creativity, collaboration and camaraderie to deliver the best futures trading experience possible to our more than 1.8 million users. See why better futures start here.
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NinjaTrader Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
Chicago-based employees follow a hybrid schedule: In-office Tuesday – Thursday, remote on Mondays and Fridays. In addition to these weekly remote days, we offer: 20 flex remote days annually 5 company-wide office-optional weeks
