Senior AI / ML Engineer

CTC Lateral•Chicago, IL

19h•Hybrid

About The Position

CTC is a cutting-edge proprietary trading firm with a long-term vision and a clear focus on helping the world price and manage risk. Our fun and trusting culture inspires us to solve the industry’s most challenging problems and take calculated risks in a collaborative environment. We strive to be the most innovative firm in the industry today, tomorrow, and long into the future while upholding ethical excellence. We believe that CTC makes a positive impact on the markets, the lives of our employees, and all the communities to which we belong. Started in 1995 by a team of forward-thinking Traders, we are proud to call ourselves an industry leader that keeps making markets and each other better. We are seeking a Senior AI / ML Engineer to help define and build how CTC leverages AI across the firm. You will work closely with executive stakeholders to identify where AI creates real leverage for our engineers, quants, and traders, and then build it. The AI landscape is moving fast and the strategy needs to evolve with it — this role carries both the technical and strategic responsibility of figuring out what bets to make and executing on them. This role sits within our Developer Experience organization.

Requirements

7+ years of engineering experience with a strong track record of building and shipping developer tools, platforms, or internal tooling that achieved broad adoption.
Demonstrated applied experience with LLMs and generative AI; deep curiosity and strong opinions about where this space is heading.
Python proficiency required; C++ or low-latency systems experience is a strong plus.
Background working in demanding technical environments - proprietary trading, hedge funds, or similar settings where reliability and developer productivity directly impact the business.
Good judgment about where AI adds value and where it doesn't, in a space that moves quickly.
Comfort with ambiguity and working closely with senior leadership.
Strong communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences.

Nice To Haves

Financial sector experience strongly preferred.
Advanced degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, Engineering, or related field is a plus.

Responsibilities

Partner with leadership to shape CTC's AI strategy as the space evolves.
Evaluate emerging AI technologies and make informed recommendations on what to adopt, what to watch, and what to skip.
Build and ship AI capabilities that drive real adoption across engineering, quant, and trading teams.
Work across the firm to understand workflows, identify high-value use cases, and build tools that fit how people actually work.
Establish sensible practices for deployment, security, and governance as the function matures.