Staff / Senior Staff Software Engineer, Matching Engine

About the role

At OKX, the Middle Exchange Platform team is responsible for developing the core modules of the exchange, including the matching engine, real-time market data streaming, and market data analysis. This work forms the backbone of the company's industry-leading trading products, serving millions of users globally. The team operates under the company's core principles of *We Before Me*, *Do the Right Thing*, and *Get Things Done*, fostering a diverse, friendly, and rewarding engineering culture. As part of OKG, which brings blockchain value to users worldwide through products such as OKX, OKX Wallet, and OKLink, the platform emphasizes safety, reliability, and innovation. This role is critical in ensuring that the exchange continues to deliver high-performance, secure, and compliant trading infrastructure.

OKX is prioritizing applicants who have a current right to work in Singapore and do not require sponsorship for a visa.

What you'll do

• Architect and evolve the low-latency matching engine using Java and C++ in a high-throughput, distributed environment, focusing on reliability, scalability, and microsecond-level response times.
• Implement and optimize order book data structures and matching algorithms to ensure fairness, throughput, and consistency for high-frequency crypto trading.
• Analyze and resolve production incidents related to order routing, execution, and settlement, minimizing service disruption and safeguarding market integrity and user funds.
• Collaborate with product managers and quant researchers to prototype new trading products and evaluate their performance impact on the platform before full-scale deployment.
• Design comprehensive test strategies, including deterministic simulation and fault injection, to ensure system correctness, reliability, and resilience under extreme conditions.
• Monitor system health in real time, define and track key performance indicators, and drive continuous improvements in throughput, latency, and stability.
• Integrate AI-assisted tooling for automated testing, anomaly detection, and performance regression analysis to enhance development efficiency and system observability.
• Work with security and compliance teams to implement controls that meet financial regulations and exchange licensing requirements across multiple jurisdictions.
• Document system behavior, operational runbooks, and architectural decisions to support on-call engineers, facilitate knowledge transfer, and guide future growth.
• Contribute to the open-source community where appropriate and represent OKX engineering at technical conferences to strengthen the company's technical reputation.
• Mentor junior engineers through code reviews and deep dives into complex distributed systems challenges, promoting internal growth and engineering excellence.

Requirements

• Educational background: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Professional experience: Proven experience as a Software Engineer on large-scale, high-concurrency systems, preferably within finance, trading environments, or other performance-critical domains.
• Programming expertise: Strong proficiency in Java and C++, with a deep understanding of concurrency, threading models, and memory management in low-latency contexts.
• Algorithmic foundation: Solid grasp of data structures, algorithms, and complexity analysis, particularly as they apply to real-time systems and high-frequency trading platforms.
• Networking knowledge: Experience with low-latency networking, socket programming, and protocols such as TCP, UDP, and optionally FIX or binary protocols used in financial markets.
• Distributed systems fundamentals: Understanding of consistency, partitioning, fault tolerance, and other distributed systems concepts essential for building reliable exchange infrastructure.
• Operational familiarity: Comfort with Linux development environments, build systems, and version control workflows using Git at scale.
• Database and integration experience: Familiarity with database systems, caching layers, and message queues used in high-throughput, low-latency environments.

Nice to have

• Prior experience in cryptocurrency exchanges, trading systems, or other financial technology domains.
• Knowledge of high-performance networking frameworks and kernel-level tuning for reduced latency.
• Exposure to AI or machine learning pipelines used in trading or risk management systems.
• Contributions to open-source projects that demonstrate engineering rigor, collaboration, and real-world impact.

Practical notes

OKX will be prioritizing applicants who have a current right to work in Singapore and do not require OKX's sponsorship of a visa. This role is based in Singapore and requires eligibility to work without sponsorship. The engagement terms referenced in the source are not detailed in the visible page, so candidates should refer to official OKX career pages or recruitment communications for specific contract type, hours, or compensation details. Travel and visa support are not provided for roles requiring sponsorship, and eligible candidates must already possess the necessary work rights. No other practical notes regarding hours, deadlines, or policies are specified in the source material.