Senior Systems Engineer (C/C++), Exchange Core

Polymarket is looking for a core C/C++ engineer to help build and scale our exchange infrastructure. This is a low-latency, high-throughput systems role focused on the heart of Polymarket’s trading engine. You’ll work on performance-critical components that directly impact market quality, reliability, and speed. You’ll operate with high ownership and minimal bureaucracy, collaborating closely with other senior engineers to design, implement, and optimize systems that must be correct, fast, and resilient under real-world load.

Responsibilities

Build the exchange core: Design and implement low-latency, high-throughput components of Polymarket’s trading and matching infrastructure using C/C++; Optimize for speed & scale: Profile, tune, and debug performance-critical systems, with a relentless focus on latency, throughput, and determinism; Design robust systems: Develop efficient algorithms and data structures, and build scalable messaging and event-driven systems (e.g. Kafka or similar); Own reliability & correctness: Reinforce the security, availability, performance, and scalability of core exchange systems through careful design, testing, and operational rigor; Collaborate deeply: Work closely with engineers across product, infra, and data to ensure tight integration between the exchange and the rest of the platform; Contribute to engineering excellence: Participate in design reviews, code reviews, and architectural discussions to maintain a high bar for quality across the codebase

Requirements

5+ years of professional C/C++ experience with deep knowledge of algorithms, data structures, and low-level performance optimization; Proven experience building or operating low-latency, high-throughput, scalable systems in production environments; Strong problem-solving skills, comfort working on complex systems end-to-end, and an entrepreneurial mindset

Nice to have

Background in finance, trading systems, networking, or exchange infrastructure; Experience with multithreading, lock-free programming, and advanced optimization techniques; Familiarity with distributed messaging systems (Kafka or similar)

Benefits

Competitive salary & equity; Unlimited PTO; Full Health, Vision, & Dental coverage; 401k match; Hardware setup — new MacBook Pro, big display, & accessories