Sr Software Engineer - Backend [Java with Cloud]

Qualifications & Requirements:

• 4+ years of experience in C++ application development.
• Hands-on experience with C++11 or above.
• Strong knowledge of object-oriented programming and software design.
• Deep understanding of STL, multi-threading, socket programming, and data structures.
• Solid grasp of Linux development and debugging techniques.
• Proficient in using GCC, GDB, and Makefile.
• Familiarity with Valgrind and similar analysis tools.
• Experience with version control tools like Git.
• Experience writing and maintaining automated tests.
• Experience in capital markets/trading domain is a plus.

Skills:

• Strong problem-solving and analytical thinking.
• Clear and effective communication.
• Self-driven with the ability to work independently.
• Passionate about high-quality software and strong engineering practices.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

• Design and Develop: Architect, design, and implement high-performance Java-based backend services and applications.
• Code Quality: Write clean, efficient, and well-documented code following industry best practices and coding standards.
• Technical Leadership: Provide technical guidance and mentorship to junior developers, promoting best practices and fostering a collaborative environment.
• Collaboration: Work closely with frontend developers, product managers, and other stakeholders to understand requirements and deliver robust solutions.
• Performance Optimization: Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks and scalability issues.
• Testing: Implement comprehensive testing strategies, including unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end tests.
• Continuous Improvement: Stay current with the latest industry trends, technologies, and best practices in Java/Golang development, and continuously improve our development processes.

About the Role:

We are seeking a skilled Java Developer to join our team. The ideal candidate will have strong experience in core Java development along with exposure to modern frameworks and tools. You will be responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining scalable applications while ensuring performance, security, and code quality.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design, develop, test, and maintain Java-based applications.
• Write clean, efficient, and reusable code following best practices.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams (Product, QA, DevOps, etc.) to deliver high-quality software.
• Troubleshoot, debug, and optimize application performance.
• Participate in code reviews and contribute to continuous improvement.
• Stay updated with emerging trends, tools, and technologies in the Java ecosystem.

Required Skills & Qualifications:

• Strong proficiency in Core Java (Java 8/11/17).
• Experience with frameworks such as Spring / Spring Boot / Hibernate.
• Good knowledge of REST APIs, Microservices architecture.
• Familiarity with SQL/NoSQL databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, etc.).
• Understanding of multithreading, collections, and design patterns.
• Experience with version control systems (Git) and build tools (Maven/Gradle).
• Solid problem-solving skills and ability to work in an Agile environment.

Good to Have:

• Exposure to cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Knowledge of containerization (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Experience with messaging systems (Kafka, RabbitMQ).
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines.

About the Role

At Ceryneian, we’re building a next-generation, research-driven algorithmic trading platform aimed at democratizing access to hedge fund-grade financial analytics. Headquartered in California, Ceryneian is a fintech innovation company dedicated to empowering traders with sophisticated yet accessible tools for quantitative research, strategy development, and execution.

Our flagship platform is currently under development. As a Backend Engineer, you will play a foundational role in designing and building the core trading engine and research infrastructure from the ground up. Your work will focus on developing performance-critical components that power backtesting, real-time strategy execution, and seamless integration with brokers and data providers. You’ll be responsible for bridging core engine logic with Python-based strategy interfaces, supporting a modular system architecture for isolated and scalable strategy execution, and building robust abstractions for data handling and API interactions. This role is central to delivering the reliability, flexibility, and performance that our users will rely on in fast-moving financial markets.

We are a remote-first team and are open to hiring exceptional candidates globally.

Core Tasks

·      Build and maintain the trading engine core for execution, backtesting, and event logging.

·      Develop isolated strategy execution runners to support multi-user, multi-strategy environments.

·      Implement abstraction layers for brokers and market data feeds to offer a unified API experience.

·      Bridge the core engine language with Python strategies using gRPC, ZeroMQ, or similar interop technologies.

·      Implement logic to parse and execute JSON-based strategy DSL from the strategy builder.

·      Design compute-optimized components for multi-asset workflows and scalable backtesting.

·      Capture real-time state, performance metrics, and slippage for both live and simulated runs.

·      Collaborate with infrastructure engineers to support high-availability deployments.

Top Technical Competencies

·      Proficiency in distributed systems, concurrency, and system design.

·      Strong backend/server-side development skills using C++, Rust, C#, Erlang, or Python.

·      Deep understanding of data structures and algorithms with a focus on low-latency performance.

·      Experience with event-driven and messaging-based architectures (e.g., ZeroMQ, Redis Streams).

·      Familiarity with Linux-based environments and system-level performance tuning.

Bonus Competencies

·      Understanding of financial markets, asset classes, and algorithmic trading strategies.

·      3–5 years of prior Backend experience.

·      Hands-on experience with backtesting frameworks or financial market simulators.

·      Experience with sandboxed execution environments or paper trading platforms.

·      Advanced knowledge of multithreading, memory optimization, or compiler construction.

·      Educational background from Tier-I or Tier-II institutions with strong computer science fundamentals, a passion for scalable system design, and a drive to build cutting-edge fintech infrastructure.

What We Offer

·      Opportunity to shape the backend architecture of a next-gen fintech startup.

·      A collaborative, technically driven culture.

·      Competitive compensation with performance-based bonuses.

·      Flexible working hours and a remote-friendly environment for candidates across the globe.

·      Exposure to financial modeling, trading infrastructure, and real-time applications.

·      Collaboration with a world-class team from Pomona, UCLA, Harvey Mudd, and Claremont McKenna.

Ideal Candidate

You’re a backend-first thinker who’s obsessed with reliability, latency, and architectural flexibility. You enjoy building scalable systems that transform complex strategy logic into high-performance, real-time trading actions. You think in microseconds, architect for fault tolerance, and build APIs designed for developer extensibility.

• Design, develop, test, debug and maintain components of a feature-rich management and orchestration product
• Manage one or more project priorities and deadlines
• The programming languages are mainly Python and Java
• Understand the infrastructure details of public clouds and use DevOps best practices to implement provisioning

You'll Need:

• Strong software design and implementation skills in building infrastructure frameworks.
• Experience building and operating extensible, scalable resilient systems.
• Working knowledge of Java and Python.
• Solid understanding of basic systems operations (disk, network, etc).
• Willingness and ability to learn new languages and concepts.
• 8+ years of experience and a BS/MS degree in Computer Science -or- a related field.

Nice to have:

• Cloud infrastructure systems engineering experience.
• Experience in building control planes.
• Experience building RESTful APIs.
• Experience with containers and cluster managers like Kubernetes.
• Experience in App deployment and config management frameworks such as Ansible, Terraform, Chef, Puppet, etc.

As a Senior Software Engineer - I,you'll take on complex problems that span multiple components and teams. As SSE - I, you could expect to: 

• Independently own one or more multiple modules, which includes: requirement analysis, design, development, maintenance & support
• Write extensive, efficient code to address complex modules and that handles interaction between multiple components. 
• Rapidly iterate to add new functionalities and solves complex problems with simple and intuitive solutions
• Produce architecture with clean interfaces, that are efficient and scalable
• Participate and contribute to architectural discussions
• Perform design and code reviews
• Perform technical feasibility and trade off studies & guides others to perform these studies
• Solve production issues. Investigate and provide solutions to minimize the business impact due to outage
• Continuously improve performance metrics of modules you own.
• Actively mentor and develop junior developers in all software development practices
• Participate in the hiring process (referrals, interviews, attending recruiting events or writing blogs)
• Onboard and mentors new team members, helps shape the culture of the team
• Collaborate effectively across teams to solve problems, execute and deliver results

Minimum Requirements: 

• A minimum of 4 years of relevant software development experience