HPC & Compute Engineering Lead

HPC & Compute Engineering Lead

Chicago | On-site

A leading quantitative trading firm is hiring a senior HPC and Compute Engineering Lead to shape the architecture and future direction of its large-scale research infrastructure.

This is a highly influential, hands-on position at the intersection of high-performance computing, infrastructure architecture, and quantitative research. You will own the design and evolution of an advanced compute environment supporting demanding research, machine learning, and data-intensive workloads.

You will work directly with quantitative researchers, software engineers, traders, and senior technology leaders to understand their computational requirements and translate them into scalable, resilient, and exceptionally high-performing infrastructure.

This is not a traditional infrastructure maintenance role. You will make critical architectural decisions, evaluate emerging technologies, lead major engineering initiatives, and solve complex performance challenges across compute, storage, networking, and orchestration.

What you’ll be doing:

• Defining the architecture and technical direction of large-scale HPC and compute platforms
• Designing and scaling bare-metal Linux infrastructure
• Building platforms for quantitative research, machine learning, and computationally intensive workloads
• Evaluating processors, GPUs, storage platforms, networking technologies, and orchestration tools
• Optimising performance, capacity, resource utilisation, resilience, and operational visibility
• Establishing architectural standards and engineering best practices
• Leading major infrastructure projects from initial design through production deployment
• Partnering with researchers and developers to improve how compute resources are accessed and utilised
• Providing technical leadership and mentoring engineers across the organisation
• Contributing to disaster recovery, business continuity, and long-term capacity planning

Relevant technical experience may include:

• Large-scale Linux and HPC infrastructure
• Kubernetes on bare metal
• Slurm, Docker, or other compute orchestration technologies
• High-performance storage platforms such as VAST, DDN, Isilon, Lustre, GPFS, or Weka
• High-speed Ethernet, InfiniBand, routing, and network performance tuning
• GPU infrastructure and AI/ML compute platforms
• Datacentre architecture and large-scale bare-metal deployments
• Python, Go, C++, or similar programming languages
• Monitoring, performance analytics, and infrastructure automation

What we’re looking for:

• 10+ years of experience within HPC, large-scale compute, research infrastructure, or similarly demanding systems environments
• A proven track record of architecting and delivering complex infrastructure at scale
• Deep Linux knowledge and a strong understanding of systems performance
• The ability to operate strategically while remaining technically hands-on
• Experience leading engineering teams, technical programmes, or major architectural initiatives
• Strong communication skills and the ability to influence both technical and non-technical stakeholders

Previous trading or financial markets experience is helpful but not required. Senior engineers from hyperscale technology, AI infrastructure, semiconductor, scientific computing, cloud platforms, and advanced research environments are strongly encouraged to apply.

The position offers genuine technical ownership, direct access to the users of the platform, major upcoming infrastructure projects, and highly competitive compensation.

If you have built, architected, or led serious compute infrastructure and want to explore one of the most technically ambitious environments in Chicago, apply directly or contact me privately for a confidential conversation.

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