Sr. Staff Technical Architect, Unified Trading
Coinbase is hiring a Sr. Staff Technical Architect, Unified Trading for a remote role open to applicants in United States. It pays $254k-$299k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Coinbase.
Level's read on this job
- Little AI ●○○○ is how Level rates this role: aI is not part of the work.
- The posting lists this role as remote.
- Tools and skills the posting cites include system architecture, distributed systems and low latency.
- Level classifies it as a lead role.
- Level lists 226 other open roles at Coinbase.
AI in this role
Sr. Staff Technical Architect to design and own core low-latency trading infrastructure and exchange connectivity.
Ready to do the most impactful work of your career? At Coinbase, we are uncompromising on our mission to increase economic freedom. The bar is high, the environment is intense, and we like it that way. This isn't a place for complacency, it’s a place to be pushed past your perceived limits. If you're ready to build the future of finance alongside people who refuse to settle for "good enough," you belong here. Coinbase is a remote-first, but not remote-only company. Expect to get together quarterly for intense in-person working sessions called “surges.” learn more about working at Coinbase.
Team/ Role Paragraph:
Coinbase is building the future of institutional trading as part of the Everything Exchange, powering the systems that let the world's largest financial institutions trade across markets with speed, depth, and trust. As an Architect on the Trading team, you'll design, build, and own the core trading systems that power Coinbase: order and execution management, algo execution, settlement, multi-venue connectivity, and low-latency messaging that serve our Retail, Prime, and wholesale brokerage customers. It's a rare chance to architect trading infrastructure from the ground up, with the ownership of a startup and the reach of Coinbase.
What you’ll do:
- Own the architecture of the end-to-end trading platform: the sequencer, the low-latency connectivity and messaging fabric, OMS/EMS, multi-venue connectivity, and execution.
- Design low-latency, high-throughput systems for real-time financial products used across institutional and retail markets.
- Drive reliability and performance, owning SLOs, observability, and incident response for systems where correctness and latency are non-negotiable.
- Set the technical bar through code, design reviews, and standards, and pay down the technical debt that matters most.
- Reduce single-point-of-failure risk across the trading stack and build team resilience through mentorship.
- Partner cross-functionally with Product, Risk, Security, and Compliance to turn technical vision into a roadmap.
Required skills and experience:
- Hands-on architect, able to design, build, deploy, and support 24/7 trading systems that process billions of dollars of transactions daily.
- Extensive backend engineering experience, with demonstrated ownership of complex, production-grade distributed systems.
- Track record of architecting an end-to-end trading platform (OMS, front/middle office, multi-exchange connectivity), not just a single gateway.
- Deep proficiency in low-latency Java and high-throughput messaging (Aeron, SBE, or similar), designing event-driven, high-availability systems.
- Experience delivering projects end-to-end: scoping, architecture, implementation, monitoring, and iteration.
- Experience building systems in a regulated or financial environment where correctness, auditability, and low-latency performance are critical.
- Experience making user-facing product decisions that balance engineering trade-offs with end-user quality, demonstrated through shipped products.
- Responsible use of generative AI, with human oversight to deliver business-ready outputs and measurable improvements in workflow efficiency, cost, and quality.
Position ID: P77879
Pay Transparency Notice: Base salary varies by location (see range below). Total compensation may also include equity and bonus eligibility, and benefits (medical, dental, vision, 401(k)).
Annual base salary range (excluding equity and bonus):$253,895—$298,700 USD
- Application Limit: Candidates may submit a maximum of 3 applications within a 6-month period.
- Equal Opportunity Employer: Coinbase is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or genetic information. Applicants with criminal histories will be considered consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws.
- US Applicants: View Employee Rights, Know Your Rights, and E-Verify Notice of Participation.
- Accommodations: If you are an individual with a disability who needs a reasonable accommodation, email us your request and contact info at accommodations[at]coinbase.com. Need screen reading technology? Click here to download a free compatible screen reader and view the tutorial.
- Data Privacy & Arbitration: By submitting your application, you agree to our Candidate Privacy Notice. US applicants: By submitting your application, you agree to Arbitration of Disputes.
How we rate this
Sr. Staff Technical Architect, Unified Trading at Coinbase rates 0 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Little AI (AI Level 1 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Little AI. AI is not part of the work.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Questions you could be asked
- Tell me about a project where system architecture was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where distributed systems was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where low latency was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where trading platforms was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where backend engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: System Architecture, Distributed Systems, Low Latency, Trading Platforms, and Backend Engineering. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
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