Senior Backend Engineer, Core Trading Systems

$175k – $250k • meaningful equity

Who we are

We’re here to fix a rigged system where the house sets the rules and always wins. Novig is the future of sports markets. It’s a peer-to-peer prediction market built to be a fair and transparent alternative to traditional sportsbooks. We put users first.

Why work here, in the words of the people who do

“Novig is extremely well positioned to win. We have the people, the culture, and the business to take advantage of the opportunity and maximize the markets and our valuation.”

“I joined Novig because it gave me a chance to be a part of a revolution.”

“I’m still here because I want to go head to head with the very best in our industry”

If you want responsibility, trust, and the chance to help build the future of sports betting - take your shot, the market is open.

The Fine Print

• Our work is tied to live sports - that means potential nights, weekends, and pressure included.

• If you need clear swim lanes, a heavy process, or someone to tell you what to do, this won’t be the right environment.

Who you are and why this role will excite you

• Excited to architect and build Novig’s core trading systems, including the matching engine, market-data pipelines, risk controls, and real-time state machines, shaping the platform at a foundational level

• Design and implement deterministic, event-driven systems for matching, settlement, and market-making flows, with strong ordering and idempotency guarantees

• Build high-throughput, low-latency infrastructure for data ingestion, distribution, replay, order gateways, session management, and pre-/at-trade risk checks

• Develop developer-first APIs for algorithmic trading integrations and high-reliability endpoints for programmatic and UI clients

• Collaborate closely with frontend, trading, product, and SRE teams to maintain a seamless, reliable user experience, including recovery, failover, observability, and performance optimization

• Expand product surface via modular backend services, contribute to architecture discussions, operational readiness, and production debugging

• Optimize system hot paths using profiling, tracing, and performance tools; improve architecture for modularity, stability, and future regulatory compliance

• Bring 4+ years of backend engineering experience, ideally in distributed or real-time systems, with proficiency in Go, Rust, or C++ and knowledge of concurrent programming, event-driven architectures, and relational databases (PostgreSQL preferred)

• Understand CAP tradeoffs, ordering semantics, and consistency/availability considerations; navigate ambiguity and take ownership across large technical surfaces

• Communicate clearly, solve complex problems, and collaborate effectively across teams

Bonus:

• Experience with matching engines, market-making systems, order books, HFT infrastructure, Kafka, Redis, real-time streaming systems, or financial exchanges

• Passion for sports, betting, and market microstructure, with curiosity about building highly reliable trading systems

We cover the spread

• $175k – $250k base, benchmarked at top-tier tech companies

• Meaningful equity for every employee, regardless of role

• Ownership is not symbolic here-it’s the point

• 100% health premiums covered

• 99% dental & vision covered

• 401(k) with 4% company match

• HSA + $1,080 annual company contribution

• $27/day lunch stipend when working from our NYC office

• $35/day dinner stipend when working from the NYC office after 6:30pm

Homebase

Union Square, NYC
In-person 4 days a week - we like being around each other (don’t worry there are snacks).

About Novig

Founded by Jacob Fortinsky and Kelechi Ukah, Novig is America's #1 Sports Prediction Market - the only platform to offer commission-free, peer-to-peer trading on sports. By eliminating the traditional sportsbook model, Novig delivers better pricing, full transparency, and a more efficient market structure for users.

Backed by the best

Novig has raised tens of millions of dollars from some of Silicon Valley’s top investors including Forerunner, YC, NFX, Paul Graham, and Joe Montana.