Senior C/C++ Engineer, US Exchange

<p></p><p><strong>About Polymarket</strong><br><br>Polymarket is the world’s largest prediction market platform. We enable individuals to express views on real-world events by trading on outcomes across politics, economics, sports, culture, and current affairs. Built as a peer-to-peer marketplace with no centralized “house,” Polymarket aggregates diverse opinions into transparent, market-based probabilities that reflect collective expectations about the future.</p><p>We’re growing fast: both in volume ($21B traded in 2025) and in adoption as an alternative news source. Our ambition is to become a ubiquitous beacon of truth in global media, powered by fast, reliable, and deeply technical market infrastructure.</p><p></p><h4><strong>About the role</strong></h4><p>Polymarket is looking for a core C/C++ engineer to help build and scale our exchange infrastructure. This is a low-latency, high-throughput systems role focused on the heart of Polymarket’s trading engine. You’ll work on performance-critical components that directly impact market quality, reliability, and speed.</p><p>You’ll operate with high ownership and minimal bureaucracy, collaborating closely with other senior engineers to design, implement, and optimize systems that must be correct, fast, and resilient under real-world load.</p><p></p><h4><strong>What you’ll do</strong></h4><p>We’re looking for an experienced individual contributor who enjoys solving hard systems problems and pushing performance limits.</p><ul> <li><p><strong>Build the exchange core:</strong> Design and implement low-latency, high-throughput components of Polymarket’s trading and matching infrastructure using C/C++.</p></li> <li><p><strong>Optimize for speed &amp; scale:</strong> Profile, tune, and debug performance-critical systems, with a relentless focus on latency, throughput, and determinism.</p></li> <li><p><strong>Design robust systems:</strong> Develop efficient algorithms and data structures, and build scalable messaging and event-driven systems (e.g. Kafka or similar).</p></li> <li><p><strong>Own reliability &amp; correctness:</strong> Reinforce the security, availability, performance, and scalability of core exchange systems through careful design, testing, and operational rigor.</p></li> <li><p><strong>Collaborate deeply:</strong> Work closely with engineers across product, infra, and data to ensure tight integration between the exchange and the rest of the platform.</p></li> <li><p><strong>Contribute to engineering excellence:</strong> Participate in design reviews, code reviews, and architectural discussions to maintain a high bar for quality across the codebase.</p></li> </ul><p></p><h4><strong>What we’re looking for</strong></h4><ul> <li><p>5+ years of professional C/C++ experience with deep knowledge of algorithms, data structures, and low-level performance optimization.</p></li> <li><p>Proven experience building or operating low-latency, high-throughput, scalable systems in production environments.</p></li> <li><p>Strong problem-solving skills, comfort working on complex systems end-to-end, and an entrepreneurial mindset.</p></li> <li><p>(Plus) Background in finance, trading systems, networking, or exchange infrastructure</p></li> <li><p>(Plus) Experience with multithreading, lock-free programming, and advanced optimization techniques</p></li> <li><p>(Plus) Familiarity with distributed messaging systems (Kafka or similar)<br></p></li> </ul><h4><strong>Benefits</strong></h4><ul> <li><p>Competitive salary &amp; equity</p></li> <li><p>Unlimited PTO, Health, Vision, &amp; Dental coverage</p></li> <li><p>401k match</p></li> <li><p>Hardware setup — new MacBook Pro, big display, &amp; accessories.</p></li> </ul> When applying, mention the word CANDYSHOP to show you read the job post completely.