Backend trading system developer

Backend Trading Systems Engineer
BlockRouteLabs · Remote · Contract

About BlockRouteLabs
At BlockRouteLabs, we build systematic trading infrastructure and strategies for digital asset markets. Our focus spans centralized exchanges, decentralized finance (DeFi), and on-chain execution environments. We prioritize transparency, statistical rigor, and real-world performance.
Founded in 2020 and operating as a globally distributed team since 2026, we are a lean team of 11–50 specialists. We trade proprietary capital — internally funded and grown through reinvested trading profits — which keeps us independent, fast-moving, and focused on real results.
About the Role
As a Backend Trading Systems Engineer, you will build and operate the production systems that run our strategies live: market-data ingestion, order routing and execution, position tracking, and real-time risk controls across centralized exchanges and DEXs.
This is money-moving code in a market that never closes — correctness, reliability, and observability come first. You will work closely with the quant and simulation teams to take strategies from research into dependable production systems.
Responsibilities
Design and build backend services for real-time market-data ingestion, order management, and execution
Implement and maintain venue integrations, including CEX REST/WebSocket APIs and DEX smart-contract interaction
Build order-lifecycle management, position tracking, and reconciliation against venue records
Implement pre-trade and runtime risk controls, including exposure limits, rate limiting, and kill switches
Engineer for reliability: failover, idempotent order handling, graceful degradation, and safe restarts
Instrument systems end to end with metrics, structured logging, alerting, and dashboards
Partner with quant and simulation teams to deploy strategies from research into production
Contribute to testing standards, code review, incident response, and postmortems
Qualifications
4+ years of backend engineering experience building distributed, real-time, or high-throughput systems
Expert proficiency in at least one of Python, Go, Rust, or C++ [narrow this to your actual stack]
Hands-on experience with WebSocket/REST API integrations, messaging or streaming systems (e.g., Redis, Kafka, ZeroMQ), and relational or time-series databases
Strong fundamentals in concurrency, networking, and performance
Rigor around correctness in systems that handle money: testing, reconciliation, and defensive design
Ability to communicate clearly and document systems well
Preferred Qualifications
Direct experience with crypto venues: exchange API integrations (e.g., via CCXT or native clients) or DEX interaction through web3 tooling
Understanding of on-chain transaction mechanics, including nonce management, gas strategy, and MEV-aware submission (e.g., private relays)
Prior work on OMS/EMS, market-making, or other latency-sensitive trading systems
Ability to read Solidity and reason about smart-contract behavior
Experience operating 24/7 production systems with on-call responsibility
What We Offer
Ownership of production systems where correctness and uptime directly protect trading capital
Access to production-grade market data, execution infrastructure, and real trading feedback loops
A small, senior team with minimal process overhead and fast decision-making
Compensation tied directly to the quality and impact of your work
Position Details
Type: Contract (independent contractor), fully remote
Commitment: Part-time (20 hours per week) or full-time (40 hours per week)
Term: Initial [3–6 month] engagement, with the option to extend or convert to a longer-term arrangement based on results and mutual fit
Hours: Flexible, with at least [4] hours of daily overlap with US Eastern Time (ET)
Compensation
Contract rate of $70–90 per hour (USD), benchmarked against top-tier quant and crypto firms
Performance-based bonus tied to your impact and overall trading performance
Equity or token-based incentives, where applicable
Hiring Process
Intro call (30 minutes) — background, motivation, and mutual fit
Technical discussion (60–90 minutes) — system design, concurrency, and venue/API integration
[Paid] coding exercise — a scoped task, such as building a small, well-tested order-handling or market-data service
Final conversation — logistics, expectations, and offer
We aim to complete the full process within [two to three weeks].