Sr. Software Engineer, AI

Disclaimer: Please be advised that the most accurate and up-to-date information about our open rolesincluding job descriptions compensation and benefitscan only be guaranteed on our official job board. For the latest listings and details please visit: 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 were 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 worlds 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 were not stopping there. Were 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 youre not just part of a team; youre 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 trueTake it from our employees.

Join us as we redefine whats possible in trading advocate for our customers and continue our journey toward becoming the worlds top retail-focused trading platform in the world.

What youll do:

NinjaTrader is investing heavily in AI not as a product feature but as a force multiplier across the entire company. Were hiring an internal forward-deployed AI Engineer to accelerate the adoption of agentic AI across Engineering Operations Customer Experience Data Finance and beyond. Youll own AI infrastructure that serves every team in the company we expect the work you build in your first year to save thousands of hours annually via 50 new AI agents.

Youll embed with internal teams find the highest-leverage automation opportunities and own them end-to-end: discovery simplification build deployment and adoption. Youll scope a problem with a non-technical stakeholder in the morning and ship production infrastructure in the afternoon. You measure your work in hours unlocked and cycle time reduced not stories closed.

In this role you will:

• Design and build multi-step agentic workflows in Python and TypeScript planning loops tool dispatch error recovery and explicit human-in-the-loop checkpoints for high-stakes decisions
• Develop production LLM applications on Anthropic and OpenAI SDKs including prompt engineering structured outputs tool/function calling prompt caching and batch processing
• Build and maintain RAG pipelines embedding generation vector/hybrid search knowledge base ingestion and apply judgment about when retrieval actually helps versus adds noise
• Own eval discipline end-to-end: define offline eval sets run A/B experiments on model changes build regression suites and articulate good enough exit criteria using LangSmith Braintrust or equivalent
• Drive cost and latency optimization token budgets model tier selection (Haiku / Sonnet / Opus and GPT equivalents) and caching strategies that hold up at scale
• Build MCP servers and function-calling connectors that give agents reliable schema-governed access to internal tools APIs and data sources Jira CRM Slack internal services and more
• Implement and maintain production integrations using REST GraphQL webhooks and event-driven patterns (queues Pub/Sub) with proper idempotency retry logic and backfill support
• Wire up OAuth/SAML authentication flows (Okta in particular) for secure agent-to-service access across internal and third-party systems
• Own cloud infrastructure for AI workloads on GCP using Terraform GKE/Cloud Run and secrets management with logging metrics and alerting from day one
• Build data pipelines that feed AI systems: strong SQL Athena/BigQuery-class warehouses ETL/ELT schema design and data-quality monitoring
• Partner with internal teams across Engineering Operations Customer Support Data and Finance to identify where agentic automation can have the highest leverage then build it
• Create reusable libraries SDKs and internal tooling so teams can extend AI capabilities without starting from scratch
• Act as a technical advisor and embedded engineer translating ambiguous business problems into well-scoped AI systems with clear success metrics
• Instrument and monitor deployed agents in production youre on-call for what you ship and you treat reliability as a feature

What youll need:

• 5 years of production software engineering experience primarily in Python or TypeScript. Go is a plus
• Production LLM application experience with Anthropic or OpenAI SDKs agents structured outputs tool use RAG evals batch processing shipped not demoed
• Forward-deployed instinct: engineering developer relations or solutions engineering experience
• Strong evaluation discipline with the ability to define and defend exit criteria using LangSmith Braintrust or equivalent tools
• Experience building multi-step tool-using agents with planning error recovery and human-in-the-loop design in production environments
• Experience with RAG pipelines embeddings hybrid search and the judgment to determine when retrieval improves outcomes
• Experience building MCP servers function-calling schemas and sandboxed execution environments
• Strong understanding of token budgets model tier trade-offs and AI cost/latency optimization strategies
• Experience integrating REST APIs GraphQL webhooks OAuth/SAML authentication (especially Okta) and event-driven architectures
• Cloud-native engineering experience with GCP or AWS including Terraform containers secrets management logging metrics and alerting
• Strong SQL and data engineering experience with modern warehouses ETL/ELT pipelines schema design and data-quality monitoring
• Ability to work cross-functionally and translate ambiguous business problems into production-ready AI systems
• Strong communication skills with both technical and non-technical stakeholders

Bonus points for:

• Trading industry fintech or capital markets experience
• Futures trading knowledge
• Experience with LangChain LlamaIndex or similar orchestration frameworks
• Familiarity with observability tooling such as OpenTelemetry Prometheus and Grafana
• Contributions to open-source AI or developer tooling projects

Compensation:

The salary range for this role will be $125000.00 - $175000.00 addition this position will also receive an annual target bonus of 12%. 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. We are not open to remote candidates for this role

Hybrid:

For Chicago-based employees we follow a hybrid work schedule: In-office Tuesday through Thursday with remote work on Mondays and 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.