Senior Software Engineer, Perpetuals

Polymarket

Senior Backend Engineer at Polymarket developing core exchange systems for a prediction market platform. Building low-latency systems and optimizing order management for perpetual futures.

Posted 6/16/2026full-timeRemote • New York • 🇺🇸 United StatesSeniorWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSGRPCKubernetesPostgresRedisRust

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Own core exchange backend systems. Take deep ownership of the systems that power order matching, position management, and order state across perpetual futures.
Build and optimize the matching engine. Profile hot paths, reduce lock contention, and drive improvements to latency and throughput backed by benchmarks and production-grade evidence.
Design for correctness at scale. Build queueing and backpressure mechanisms that keep the orderbook consistent and reliable under high load, without crossing books, creating ghost fills, or introducing stale order state.
Build for observability. Instrument systems with metrics, logs, and traces. Establish rollback guarantees and narrow critical paths that make production incidents faster to detect, diagnose, and resolve.
Improve runtime performance. Optimize CPU, memory, and allocation behavior to meet the demands of a high-throughput exchange in production.
Own production incidents end-to-end. Debug latency and correctness issues directly, and drive follow-through that leaves the system measurably better each time.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Senior backend engineering experience with a strong background in order-book-based exchange systems
Deep knowledge of low-latency systems: concurrency, lock contention, async correctness, and performance profiling
Experience with matching engines, order state management, or similar exchange infrastructure
Comfort working in Rust or a strong willingness to work in it — enthusiasm for the language is a plus, resistance to it is a red flag
Strong observability fundamentals: metrics, logs, distributed traces, and profiling tools
Strong computer science fundamentals: algorithms, data structures, and systems design
(Plus) Experience with high-frequency or low-latency trading infrastructure
(Plus) Familiarity with Redis, PostgreSQL, gRPC, and Protobuf
(Plus) Kubernetes and AWS production operations experience

Benefits

Comp & perks

Competitive salary & equity
Unlimited PTO
Full Health, Vision, & Dental coverage
401k match
Hardware setup: new MacBook Pro, big display, & accessories

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

backend engineeringorder-book-based exchange systemslow-latency systemsconcurrencylock contentionasync correctnessperformance profilingalgorithmsdata structuressystems design

Soft Skills

ownershipdebuggingproblem-solvingperformance optimizationincident management