Lead Engineer, Trading Product Engineering

About Bullish
Bullish is an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. These include: Bullish Exchange - a regulated and institutionally focused digital assets spot and derivatives exchange, integrating a high-performance central limit order book matching engine with automated market making to provide deep and predictable liquidity. Bullish Exchange is regulated in Germany, Hong Kong, and Gibraltar. CoinDesk Indices - a collection of tradable proprietary and single-asset benchmarks and indices that track the performance of digital assets for global institutions in the digital assets and traditional finance industries. CoinDesk Data - a broad suite of digital assets market data and analytics, providing real-time insights into prices, trends, and market dynamics. CoinDesk Insights - a digital asset media and events provider and operator of Coindesk.com, a digital media platform that covers news and insights about digital assets, the underlying markets, policy, and blockchain technology.

Reports to:
Vice President, Engineering

Engineering Organization & Culture

At Bullish, we are engineering the institutional standard for the digital asset industry. Our mission is to build a platform where security and compliance are the foundational core, requiring a commitment to technical excellence that goes beyond simply delivering code. We operate as a global engineering organization, setting a high bar in a demanding environment for those driven to do the best work of their careers alongside world-class peers.

We value engineers who treat development as a craft and own the outcome from concept to deployment. You will be expected to navigate the unknown, bring structure to ambiguity, and help shape the frameworks and processes that drive our global teams forward. We refuse to compromise on quality and seek problem solvers who thrive on high-impact technical challenges.

The Team: Trading Product Engineering

The Trading Product Engineering Team builds the core distributed systems that drive the global trading experience on Bullish Exchange. We own the end-to-end order lifecycle, orchestrating a sophisticated hybrid matching engine-combining a Central Limit Order Book with proprietary Automated Market Making-and the high-throughput APIs that enable trading across Spot, Futures, and Options. Our work demands absolute correctness in managing complex financial state transitions, translating intricate market structures into robust, scalable solutions.

What You'll Do

• Engineer for Performance: Design and deliver reusable, reliable, and low-latency Java code that powers the core of the Exchange.
• Apply Domain Expertise: Leverage deep understanding of TradFi products-specifically Spot and Derivatives-to ensure functional correctness and market fit.
• Drive Technical Excellence: Mentor team members and define "what good looks like", setting the bar for code quality, automation, and design.
• Solve Hard Problems: Identify critical bottlenecks and engineer low-latency solutions to optimize system performance.
• Collaborate Globally: Work as part of a dynamic, distributed team, including Engineering, Product, and Project Management.

What You'll Bring

• 12+ years of backend engineering experience, with a specific focus on front-office execution and trading technologies.
• Expert-level proficiency in Java (17+), with deep knowledge of the JVM, concurrency models, and collections.
• Proven track record of architecting and designing complex, low-latency trading systems from the ground up.
• Strong command of data structures, algorithms, and rigorous TDD/BDD development approaches.
• Hands-on experience with frameworks like Spring or Micronaut, and container orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Solid understanding of messaging technologies such as Kafka, RabbitMQ, or Solace.
• Thorough understanding of financial products, including Spot, Futures, and Options markets.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field.

Nice to Haves

• Familiarity with TypeScript.
• Familiarity with Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Experience in the cryptocurrency or digital asset space.

Bullish is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are fast evolving and striving towards being a globally-diverse community. With integrity at our core, our success is driven by a talented team of individuals and the different perspectives they are encouraged to bring to work every day.