Systems Performance Engineer

We are looking for a Systems Performance Engineer to join our team. In this role, you will work closely with our portfolio strategists, engineers, and data scientists to optimize the performance of our automated systems. This is a high-impact role where you will take ownership of system performance, execution efficiency, and infrastructure design—focusing on maximizing speed, reliability, and overall system throughput.

If you’re the right fit for this role, you are obsessed with performance optimization and system efficiency. You think in microseconds and find joy in making fast code even faster. Whether your background is in high-frequency trading, gaming, robotics, or another performance-driven industry, you have a deep technical foundation and an instinct for squeezing out every ounce of performance from a system. You thrive in environments where autonomy, speed, and impact are critical, and you have the competitive drive to build the best possible systems. If you love solving complex technical problems and care deeply about execution speed, reliability, and scale, we want to hear from you.

What You’ll Do

• Optimize end-to-end system performance across a variety of workloads, ensuring low-latency, high-throughput execution.
• Own and improve execution infrastructure, increasing efficiency across multiple asset classes.
• Analyze and enhance code performance, applying profiling tools, benchmarking, and tuning techniques to eliminate bottlenecks.
• Build and refine tooling ensuring smooth execution and real-time system insights.
• Automate critical workflows, including records gathering, PnL reporting, and trading statistics generation.
• Establish and maintain connectivity with brokerages, exchanges, and liquidity providers across diverse asset classes.
• Collaborate closely with engineers and researchers to translate alpha signals into high-performance, production-ready execution strategies.

Who You Are

• A systems engineer at heart—obsessed with performance optimization, profiling, and tuning.
• Deeply curious about how to make code run faster, scale better, and execute more efficiently.
• Industry agnostic—your expertise may come from gaming, high-performance computing, robotics, or any other precision-driven field.
• Highly autonomous, able to navigate ambiguity and drive solutions in a fast-moving environment.
• Deeply engaged in the LLM tools and AI space in general, with a demonstrated ability to leverage AI effectively.
• Someone who thrives in a high-stakes, competitive setting where milliseconds matter.

What You Bring

• Proficiency in coding high-performance systems, with expertise in Python and/or Rust preferred.
• Experience with profiling, benchmarking, and debugging tools to optimize latency-sensitive applications.
• A strong understanding of systems architecture, memory management, concurrency, and networking.

• A foundational grasp of statistical methods and financial knowledge is a plus
• A passion for continuous performance improvement—you love squeezing out every last drop of efficiency.

Our Team & Culture

At Nascent, we are an interdisciplinary team of investors, builders & creators, capable of achieving more together than we can as individuals. We offer the opportunity to contribute to building the future global economic system with a world-class team and culture that pairs the freedom to explore, experiment & play with a competitive drive to win. We invest in our people by providing the autonomy to build, coupled with accountability & honest feedback to help learn, grow, perform & win. We’re a fully distributed team that understands the value of in-person time—we host two team retreats per year and encourage team members to come together for more frequent in-person work.

Principles that drive our team & work

• Compete to win 
• Own your shit 
• Explore, experiment, play
• Always be building
• Seek and speak truth

What We Offer

At Nascent, we offer a competitive total compensation package heavily weighted toward bonus, ensuring that when we perform at our best and the firm wins we all win.

• The opportunity to learn, experiment and build in an entrepreneurial environment
• Comprehensive health benefits package including dental, vision, and life
• Generous paid parental leave & supported return to work
• Annual Health & Wellness Stipend of up to $1,000
• Retirement plan matching contributions
• Open vacation policy as well as flexible work hours and location
• Access to our internal performance coaching, technical experts and support for continuing your skill development and growth
• Team activities and bi-annual in-person team retreats

We are an equal opportunity employer and celebrate diversity and differences of perspectives. We do not discriminate on the basis of any status, inclusive of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.