As Trade Systems Lead at Nascent, youâll take full ownership of the systems that support, orchestrate, and scale our trading operationâfrom strategy configuration and controls to workflows, tooling, and integration points across research, trading, and platform. You will not be expected to be a domain expert in market microstructure or exchange-level execution. You will be expected to lead a team to build resilient systems that let our traders and researchers move fast, safely, and with leverage.
This is a senior role with real leadership weight. Youâll lead a team, set direction, and run complex projects end-to-endâwhile staying close enough to the code to unblock hard problems and model what âgoodâ looks like. Youâll partner tightly with traders, researchers, and platform leads, bringing order to ambiguity and turning intent into shipped systems.
Weâre looking for an AI-native, agentic engineer: someone who instinctively uses LLMs and modern tooling to accelerate design, planning, debugging, and deliveryâand teaches their team to do the same. You create leverage through systems, people, and tools.
What Youâll Do
Own the trade systems domain: Take end-to-end ownership of the systems that power our trading workflowsâdesigning, building, and evolving internal tools and infrastructure that sit around execution, not inside exchange microstructure.
Lead and scale a team: Act as a true people leader: set direction, coach performance, run planning, and create clarity.
Drive execution through chaos: Turn messy, high-stakes ideas into shipped systems. You plan work, sequence delivery, manage dependencies, and keep momentum without hiding behind process.
Partner with senior stakeholders: Work directly with trading, research, and platform leads. You translate business needs into system design, make tradeoffs explicit, and keep everyone aligned as things change
Build with an AI-first mindset: Use LLMs and agentic workflows to move fasterâacross design docs, implementation, debugging, and project management. You raise the bar for how the team builds.
Architect for reliability and scale: Design systems that are observable, resilient, and adaptable as strategies, venues, and team size evolve.
Set the standard: Shape how this team plans, builds, reviews, and ships. You define what âgreatâ looks likeâtechnically and operationally.
About You
You are a strong people leader who has run teams through real deliveryâsetting priorities, giving feedback, and holding a high bar.
You are a systems thinker, comfortable owning complex internal platforms even if youâre not the worldâs expert in the underlying domain.
You thrive in ambiguity and bring structure through action, not decks.
You have real project management instincts: sequencing work, managing risk, and keeping stakeholders aligned.
You are AI-native and scrappyâyou default to leverage, automation, and modern tools instead of brute force.
You value ownership over consensus and clarity over ceremony.
Experience That Helps (But Isnât Dogma)
Leading engineering teams that build internal platforms or mission-critical systems
Owning systems adjacent to trading, finance, or high-reliability operations
Experience designing workflows, controls, or orchestration layersânot just low-level execution
Strong backend or systems engineering background (language and stack are less important than judgement)
Deep expertise in trade execution systems is not required. Curiosity, learning speed, and ownership are.
Nice to Haveâs
Demonstrated ability to manage senior cross-functional stakeholders and drive alignment across technical and business teams
Experience working in crypto, DeFi, or high-frequency trading environments
Ideally based within ±3 hours of EST
About Nascent
Founded in 2020, Nascent exists to build, expand, and capture opportunity, in open markets and permissionless technologies. Building from a base of permanent capital, we deploy assets across a range of both liquid and long-term strategies that ensure we are among the most active users of the open financial system we are helping to build. Weâve backed 100+ early-stage teams that we believe can change markets and expand whatâs possible. At Nascent, we combine venture + market pedigree with product-grade engineering to turn research into revenue: experiments that ship fast, are evaluated rigorously, and move P&L. We focus on models, low-latency infrastructure, and resilient systems that compound performance over time.
Our Team & Culture
At Nascent, we are an interdisciplinary team of investors, builders & creators, capable of achieving more together than we can as individuals. We offer the opportunity to contribute to building the future global economic system with a world-class team and culture that pairs the freedom to explore, experiment & play with a competitive drive to win. We invest in our people by providing the autonomy to build, coupled with accountability & honest feedback to help learn, grow, perform & win. Weâre a fully distributed team that understands the value of in-person timeâwe host a team retreat each year and encourage team members to come together for more frequent in-person work.
Principles that drive our team & work
Compete to win
Explore, experiment, play
Always be building
Seek and speak truth
Own your shit
What We Offer
At Nascent, we offer a competitive total compensation package heavily weighted toward bonus, ensuring that when we perform at our best and the firm wins we all win.
The opportunity to learn, experiment and build in an entrepreneurial environment
Remote and distributed working environment
Comprehensive health benefits package including dental, vision, and life
16 weeks fully paid parental leave & supported return to work
Home office setup and stipend or coworking space and wellness stipend
Retirement plan matching contributions
Open vacation policy as well as flexible work hours and location
Team activities and in-person team retreats
We are an equal opportunity employer and celebrate diversity and differences of perspectives. We do not discriminate on the basis of any status, inclusive of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.
