Staff Software Engineer (Institutional, FCM)

Role Overview

Coinbase is building the future of regulated derivatives as part of the Institutional Everything Exchange, and Coinbase Financial Markets (CFM) is our CFTC-regulated Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) - the entity that lets retail and institutional clients trade and clear US futures and options.

As a Staff Software Engineer on the FCM team, you will be a hands-on technical anchor across the entire FCM lifecycle: market data, order entry and routing, settlement and money movement, back office reporting, and our in-house risk and liquidation system. You will help lead a major replatforming onto next-gen architecture and reduce legacy vendor dependencies.

Coinbase is a remote-first company with quarterly in-person working sessions called "surges."

Responsibilities

• Own design and architecture across the FCM core, from market data and order routing through settlement, reporting, and risk.
• Drive the next-gen replatforming and reduce legacy vendor dependencies while raising stability and reliability.
• Set the technical bar through code, design reviews, and standards, and pay down the technical debt that matters most.
• Partner across pods (execution, risk, lifecycle) and cross-functionally with Product, CFM Risk and Ops, Finance, and Compliance to deliver correct, auditable systems and turn strategy into a roadmap.
• Mentor engineers across the team and act as a force multiplier, elevating code quality and architectural rigor.

Requirements

• 8+ years of backend engineering experience, with demonstrated ownership of complex, production-grade distributed systems.
• Direct FCM or derivatives experience, with hands-on ownership of one or more parts of the futures trade lifecycle (settlement, clearing, margin/risk, order entry/routing, market data, or back office/books and records).
• Deep proficiency in a modern backend language (Go preferred; Java or similar) and event-driven, high-availability architectures.
• Experience in a regulated or financial environment (CFTC/NFA or comparable) where correctness, auditability, and reliability are critical.
• Track record delivering end-to-end—scoping, architecture, implementation, monitoring, and iteration—including replatforming or migrating off legacy systems, while still coding hands-on and raising the quality bar.
• Responsible utilization of generative AI, maintaining human oversight to deliver business-ready outputs and drive improvements in efficiency, cost, and quality.
• Ion XTP or comparable exchange platform experience is preferred.

Additional Application Information

• Candidates may submit a maximum of 3 applications within a 6-month period.