Software Engineer AI Jobs in Illinois

JOIN US ON OUR MISSION TO BECOME THE #1 RETAIL TRADING PLATFORM IN THE WORLD

Welcome to the dynamic world of NinjaTrader! As an industry-leading trading platform and futures broker, we're empowering traders to take control of their financial destiny. How do we do it? We provide cutting-edge products and services that enhance the trading journey. Whether a seasoned pro or just starting out, NinjaTrader equips traders with award-winning software and brokerage services to navigate the world's leading financial markets with confidence.

Our growth story is nothing short of exhilarating. Since 2003, NinjaTrader has been dedicated to understanding and supporting traders on their journey toward trading triumph. Through those efforts, our user base has grown to over 2 million users and we have become the number one rated futures brokerage worldwide.

But we're not stopping there. We're constantly evolving, pushing boundaries, and modernizing the futures industry. Our commitment to innovation means users will always have access to dynamic tools, real-time support, and a community of like-minded traders.

So, why work at NinjaTrader? Here, you're not just part of a team; you're part of a movement. We empower employees to reach new heights in their careers by providing a dynamic culture focused on social connection, professional development, and employee recognition initiatives. Sounds too good to be true? Take it from our employees.

Join us as we redefine what's possible in trading, advocate for our customers, and continue our journey toward becoming the world's top retail-focused trading platform in the world.

What you'll do:

NinjaTrader is investing heavily in AI — not as a product feature, but as a force multiplier across the entire company. We're hiring an internal, forward-deployed AI Engineer to accelerate the adoption of agentic AI across Engineering, Operations, Customer Experience, Data, Finance, and beyond. You'll own AI infrastructure that serves every team in the company — we expect the work you build in your first year to save thousands of hours annually via 50+ new AI agents.

You'll embed with internal teams, find the highest-leverage automation opportunities, and own them end-to-end: discovery, simplification, build, deployment, and adoption. You'll scope a problem with a non-technical stakeholder in the morning and ship production infrastructure in the afternoon. You measure your work in hours unlocked and cycle time reduced — not stories closed.

In this role you will:

• Design and build multi-step agentic workflows in Python and TypeScript — planning loops, tool dispatch, error recovery, and explicit human-in-the-loop checkpoints for high-stakes decisions
• Develop production LLM applications on Anthropic and OpenAI SDKs, including prompt engineering, structured outputs, tool/function calling, prompt caching, and batch processing
• Build and maintain RAG pipelines — embedding generation, vector/hybrid search, knowledge base ingestion — and apply judgment about when retrieval actually helps versus adds noise
• Own eval discipline end-to-end: define offline eval sets, run A/B experiments on model changes, build regression suites, and articulate "good enough" exit criteria using LangSmith, Braintrust, or equivalent
• Drive cost and latency optimization — token budgets, model tier selection (Haiku / Sonnet / Opus and GPT equivalents), and caching strategies that hold up at scale
• Build MCP servers and function-calling connectors that give agents reliable, schema-governed access to internal tools, APIs, and data sources — Jira, CRM, Slack, internal services, and more
• Implement and maintain production integrations using REST, GraphQL, webhooks, and event-driven patterns (queues, Pub/Sub) with proper idempotency, retry logic, and backfill support
• Wire up OAuth/SAML authentication flows (Okta in particular) for secure agent-to-service access across internal and third-party systems
• Own cloud infrastructure for AI workloads on GCP using Terraform, GKE/Cloud Run, and secrets management — with logging, metrics, and alerting from day one
• Build data pipelines that feed AI systems: strong SQL, Athena/BigQuery-class warehouses, ETL/ELT, schema design, and data-quality monitoring
• Partner with internal teams across Engineering, Operations, Customer Support, Data, and Finance to identify where agentic automation can have the highest leverage — then build it
• Create reusable libraries, SDKs, and internal tooling so teams can extend AI capabilities without starting from scratch
• Act as a technical advisor and embedded engineer, translating ambiguous business problems into well-scoped AI systems with clear success metrics
• Instrument and monitor deployed agents in production — you're on-call for what you ship, and you treat reliability as a feature

What you'll need:

• 5+ years of production software engineering experience, primarily in Python or TypeScript. Go is a plus
• Production LLM application experience with Anthropic or OpenAI SDKs — agents, structured outputs, tool use, RAG, evals, batch processing — shipped, not demoed
• Forward-deployed instinct: engineering, developer relations, or solutions engineering experience
• Strong evaluation discipline with the ability to define and defend exit criteria using LangSmith, Braintrust, or equivalent tools
• Experience building multi-step tool-using agents with planning, error recovery, and human-in-the-loop design in production environments
• Experience with RAG pipelines, embeddings, hybrid search, and the judgment to determine when retrieval improves outcomes
• Experience building MCP servers, function-calling schemas, and sandboxed execution environments
• Strong understanding of token budgets, model tier trade-offs, and AI cost/latency optimization strategies
• Experience integrating REST APIs, GraphQL, webhooks, OAuth/SAML authentication (especially Okta), and event-driven architectures
• Cloud-native engineering experience with GCP or AWS, including Terraform, containers, secrets management, logging, metrics, and alerting
• Strong SQL and data engineering experience with modern warehouses, ETL/ELT pipelines, schema design, and data-quality monitoring
• Ability to work cross-functionally and translate ambiguous business problems into production-ready AI systems
• Strong communication skills with both technical and non-technical stakeholders

Bonus points for:

• Trading industry, fintech, or capital markets experience
• Futures trading knowledge
• Experience with LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar orchestration frameworks
• Familiarity with observability tooling such as OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, and Grafana
• Contributions to open-source AI or developer tooling projects

Compensation:

The salary range for this role will be $125,000.00 - $175,000.00 USD. In addition, this position will also receive an annual target bonus of 12%. Bonus pay at NinjaTrader is based on individual performance (50%) as well as company/team performance (50%).

Salary and bonus earnings are only two components of the total compensation package offered by NinjaTrader. NinjaTrader offers a 401K plan through ADP under which the company will match up to 3.5% of employee contributions. Annual paid time off allowance accrues at a rate of 18 days per year (some positions may qualify for more) plus seven paid holidays.

Location:

This role is based in Chicago, IL. We are not open to remote candidates for this role.

Hybrid:

For Chicago-based employees, we follow a hybrid work schedule: In-office Tuesday through Thursday, with remote work on Mondays and Fridays. In addition to these weekly remote days, we offer:

• 20 additional flex remote days annually
• 5 Company Wide Office-Optional weeks tied to major holidays

Our Core Benefits Include:

• Generous PTO
• 7 Paid Holidays Annually + 5 Conditional Holidays Annually
• 1 Service Day Annually
• 401k with 3.5% Company Match
• Paid Parental Bonding Leave
• Health, Vision, Dental Coverage
• Life and Disability Insurance Covered 100% by NinjaTrader

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression, or veteran status. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.