Lead Software Engineer

All applicants must currently be living in Illinois. No relocation.
About Us
CRSP is a leader in providing research-quality data to scholars and investors, advancing the body of knowledge in finance, economics, and related disciplines for over 60 years. Nearly 500 leading academic institutions in 35 countries around the world rely on CRSP data for quality and timely academic securities research.
Current projects include development using Scala, Python, Apache Spark, SQL Server, Apache Parquet, Microsoft Azure technologies, and Microsoft Azure DevOps.
Join us in our effort to create the highest quality financial research data and providing the input for some of the most influential financial research studies.
The Role
As a Lead Software Engineer at CRSP, you will utilize your engineering skills to contribute to the Research Products platform, helping develop innovative and high-quality solutions on an engaging stack utilizing both modern and leading-edge technologies. You will play a lead role on a small but growing team of engineers, using your skills to help extend the platform as well as mentor your peers and provide technical leadership. As a member of this driven and adaptive team you will participate in all stages of our development lifecycle - from initial research, discovery, solution prototyping, development, debugging, all the way through deployment to production, operational readiness, and support.
Responsibilities

• Implement, design, and maintain value-adding, performant, and scalable solutions which enhance and extend the CRSP Research Products platform
• Make independent, high-impact contributions through a comprehensive focus on quality, testable code
• Advise technical leadership on technology choices
• Collaborate with all levels of the organization during the phases of the software development lifecycle to craft and build workable implementation plans, timelines, and ultimately, robust solutions
• Provide technical guidance to team members through education and coaching of best practice functional and object-oriented principles
• Maintain mutual and positive working relationships with all members of CRSP through an environment of cooperation, coordination, and respect

Preferred Qualifications

• Excellent problem solving skills
• Experience leading software projects and mentoring junior engineers
• Familiarity with functional/declarative programming concepts (monads, functors, higher-order functions, currying, immutability, side effects, pure functions, etc.)
• Experience using both Scala and Apache Spark
• Experience with Python 3 and the Pandas library
• Experience designing and debugging issues in complex distributed systems
• Experience diagnosing and resolving relational database performance issues, including analysis of query plans, structure, and indexing
• Familiarity with Git or similar version control
• Experience working in an Agile environment with strong engineering best practices, including unit testing, code reviews, continuous integration, and automated deployments
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including the ability to communicate technical concepts to non-technical staff, users, and partners
• Experience in the securities and/or financial industry and/or additional education in finance preferred
• Bachelor's degree (BA/BS) in Computer Science or related field

Minimum Qualifications

• 8+ years of development experience in a professional environment
• 2+ years of programming experience with Scala, Java, Python, or C#
• Proficiency in data-driven programming
• Proficiency in working with and writing queries against relational databases such as SQL Server

LOCATION: 105 West Adams Street, 17 TH Floor, Chicago, IL 60603
WORK SCHEDULE: Full Time - 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. normal working hours