Staff Software Engineer (Events)

Summary 

Are you a systems-minded engineer who thrives on shaping technical direction, mentoring others, and driving impact at scale?

As a Staff Software Engineer at Topstep, you will join the Events team and play a pivotal role in shaping the distributed systems that power our trader experience. You will help define and evolve the event-driven architecture that serves as the communication backbone across our platforms, ensuring reliability, scalability, and clarity as our ecosystem grows. You’ll work across architecture, execution, and product to lead complex, cross-team initiatives from concept to delivery. You’ll define scalable engineering patterns, guide long-term technical direction, and raise the bar for code quality, operational excellence, and team collaboration.

This role is ideal for someone who brings a blend of hands-on execution and high-level vision, someone who’s excited to work across boundaries, challenge assumptions, and push for elegant solutions that scale with intention. Join us and help shape what engineering excellence looks like at Topstep.

Key Responsibilities 

• Lead the design and evolution of complex systems with a long-term, platform-wide perspective.
• Drive high-impact engineering initiatives across teams, aligning architecture with business and product strategy.
• Partner with stakeholders to identify technical opportunities, surface trade-offs, and make clear, strategic decisions.
• Guide cross-functional delivery efforts—setting direction, unblocking teams, and ensuring consistency and quality at scale.
• Invest in reliability, observability, and scalability across systems to enable faster iteration and resilient experiences.
• Mentor engineers at all levels and help grow the technical leadership bench within the team.
• Champion clarity in communication, technical writing, and cross-team collaboration.
• Contribute to the culture of engineering at Topstep through thought leadership, shared practices, and community involvement.

Required Qualifications and Key Competencies

• 8+ years of professional experience in software engineering, with demonstrated impact at a Staff or equivalent level.
• Proven success leading architecture and delivery across multiple teams or systems.
• Deep expertise in building scalable, distributed systems including event-driven architectures, message queues, eventual consistency, and handling race conditions. With a focus on performance, security, and maintainability.
• Track record of influencing engineering culture through mentorship, documentation, and technical leadership.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to distill complex technical ideas for a variety of audiences.
• A growth mindset and a bias toward action—balancing technical vision with pragmatic delivery.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building financial, trading, or fintech platforms where data consistency, performance, and reliability are critical.
• Familiarity with event-driven architectures using systems like NATS, Kafka, or similar message brokers.
• Strong full-stack foundation with expertise in both backend API design (GraphQL, REST) and modern frontend development (React, Next.js, TypeScript).
• Comfort with modern DevOps practices, CI/CD tooling, and infrastructure as code.
• Background contributing to design systems or component libraries used across multiple teams.

Company Culture & Perks

• Topstep is an engaging working environment which ranges from fully remote to hybrid. We foster a culture of collaboration with cameras on during meetings and a robust Slack environment for communication. 
• Seven Company-paid Holidays and generous Family Leave. Paid time off is front-loaded.
• Competitive 401(k) matching, health, dental, and vision insurance is offered for full time employees.
• Vacations are encouraged with a bonus for taking 5 consecutive days. Employee referrals are bonused. Topstep offers a food and groceries budget and contributes towards health and wellness.

New Hire Base Salary Range

• $180,000-$250,000.
• Bonus: This position is eligible for a performance-based bonus as provided by the plan terms and governing documents.
• The compensation offered will take into account internal compensation structure and may vary depending on the candidate's geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience among other factors.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Topstep is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where all employees and applicants are valued. All qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or veteran status, in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws.

Interested in the role? Apply today with your resume!