Operational Resiliency Engineer

About the role

NinjaTrader is looking for an L1 Operational Resilience Specialist to provide front-line operational support to our FCM Core team across Account Acquisition, Compliance/AML, and Treasury functions. This role sits at the intersection of engineering and operations — you'll keep critical financial processes running smoothly while working closely with Engineering, Product, QA, and cross-functional partners to drive continuous improvements in reliability and observability.

Responsibilities

• Manage incident response by acknowledging and triaging incoming events, applying runbooks to restore service quickly and consistently
• Design and implement metrics and monitors across our distributed application, collaborating with the SRE team to integrate into our observability framework
• Develop and continuously improve runbooks for FCM processes, ensuring clear, repeatable procedures for operational events
• Understand and maintain the DAG controlling all FCM processes and their dependencies, ensuring accurate sequencing and reliable execution
• Implement robust monitoring and logging using industry-standard observability tooling such as OpenTelemetry
• Update and maintain technical documentation describing the critical path processing for FCM; establish SLA, SLO, and SLI targets for each process
• Manage event platform systems such as Kafka and IBM MQ to ensure reliable data connectivity with external partners
• Surface operational feedback to engineering teams to drive improvements in the resiliency and robustness of business processes
• Leverage AI tooling to proactively identify gaps in monitoring, analysis, documentation, and other operational domains

Requirements

• BS or MS in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field — or equivalent practical experience
• 2+ years of experience working with distributed systems in a production environment
• Comfort leveraging AI tooling to improve workflows and surface operational insights
• Strong understanding of security best practices for backend services
• Excellent verbal communication skills with a collaborative, team-first approach

Bonus Points

• Familiarity with finance back office systems and trading concepts
• Background in multi-tenant SaaS platform architectures
• Experience working in a regulated fintech, trading, or brokerage environment

Compensation

The salary range for this role is $100,000.00 - $150,000.00 USD, with an annual target bonus of 10% (based 50% on individual performance and 50% on company/team performance). NinjaTrader offers a 401(k) plan through ADP with a company match of up to 3.5% of employee contributions. Annual paid time off accrues at a rate of 18 days per year plus seven paid holidays.

Location

This role is based in Chicago, IL. We are not open to remote candidates for this role. 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 and 5 Company Wide Office-Optional weeks tied to major holidays.

Benefits

• 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