Senior Staff Software Engineer (Institutional Exchange)

Join Coinbase, a leading cryptocurrency exchange, as a Senior Staff Software Engineer on the Exchange team. In this role, you will set the architectural direction for the matching engine, order management, market data, and unified trading systems. You will have the opportunity to shape a trading platform from the ground up, with the ownership of a startup and the reach of Coinbase. You will lead the design of ultra-low-latency trading systems, drive cross-team technical alignment, and mentor junior engineers.

Set the architectural direction for the matching engine, order management, market data, and unified trading systems.

About Coinbase

• Demonstrated architectural ownership of an end-to-end trading platform - order management, multi-venue connectivity, and real-time risk - not a single component
• Proven track record influencing technical direction across multiple teams without direct authority

Responsibilities

• Drive multi-quarter initiatives from ambiguity through incremental milestones to delivery, ensuring alignment across teams.
• Mentor L5-L6 engineers and build the next rung of technical leadership on a lean, high-leverage team.

Requirements

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including significant ownership of production trading, exchange, or market-data systems at scale
• Utilizes generative AI responsibly, maintaining human oversight to deliver business-ready outputs and drive measurable improvements in workflow efficiency, cost, and quality
• Experience operating latency-sensitive systems in on-prem/colocated and cloud environments, including incident command and safe production change
• Deep expertise in low-latency distributed systems and a backend language such as Java, C++, or Go, with fluency in JVM/Linux performance tuning

Preferred

• Genuine interest in crypto and institutional markets, with the ability to ramp quickly; deep crypto experience is a plus, not a requirement

Pay

USD 262,650 - 309,000