Director of Engineering, Robinhood
Brokerage Platform
$294-345k
5 days a week in office (Menlo Park, CA)
Commission-free stock trading & investing app
Be an early applicant
Commission-free stock trading & investing app
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$294-345k
5 days a week in office (Menlo Park, CA)
1001+ employees
Company mission
To democratize finance for all.
Role
Who you are
- 15+ years of software engineering experience, with 6+ years in engineering leadership roles — including demonstrated experience as a Director or Senior Director managing large, multi-team engineering organizations
- Deep platform engineering background — you've owned and driven the technical direction of foundational backend platforms at scale, not just product features built on top of them
- (big plus, though not directly required) Experience at the intersection of financial services, trading, brokerage, or adjacent high-criticality domains is a strong plus — you don't need to know all four of our sub-domains, but depth in one or two (market data, clearing, order execution, or brokerage infrastructure) is a meaningful signal
- A track record of driving platform modernization bets that delivered real business outcomes — you've made the case for a large technical investment, executed it, and pointed to the result
- Comfort operating in a high-severity, always-on engineering environment — you've led teams through major incidents and built the systems and culture to minimize their recurrence
- Strong background with distributed systems, backend services at scale, Go or Python, and cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred)
- Background from high-performance engineering organizations in fintech, trading, crypto, or large-scale consumer platforms — companies similar to Robinhood, Coinbase, SoFi, Google, or similar environments where the platform was the business is a strong plus!
What the job involves
- We are building an elite team, applying frontier technologies to the world's biggest financial problems
- We're looking for bold thinkers
- Sharp problem-solvers
- Builders who are wired to make an impact
- Robinhood isn't a place for complacency, it's where ambitious people do the best work of their careers
- We're a high-performing, fast-moving team with ethics at the center of everything we do
- Expectations are high, and so are the rewards
- The Brokerage Platform org is the backbone of everything Robinhood trades, clears, and settles
- It is the underlying infrastructure that powers every equities trade, every options contract, every event contract, and every crypto transaction that moves through our platform — and it is the foundation on which Robinhood's most important business lines are built
- The org spans four deeply interconnected teams: Market Data & Symbology (the real-time and reference data layer that the entire product experience depends on), Trading Platform (core order routing, execution management, and bulk order systems), Clearing (settlement, margin, security lending, cash sweep, and the full back-office operations stack), and Brokerage Infrastructure (the platform layer that enables every product team to move faster through abstractions, reliability investments, and next-generation stack modernization)
- This org operates 24 hours a day around critical market functions — from market open to trade settlement — and when things go wrong, it matters
- As the Director of Engineering, Brokerage Platform, you will lead one of Robinhood's largest and most consequential engineering organizations
- You will own the technical strategy, people leadership, and delivery execution for a broad, high-stakes platform — partnering closely with a dedicated TPM and engaging deeply with trading, crypto, and active trader product teams who depend on your org every day
- This is not a role for someone who manages from a distance
- You will need the engineering depth to challenge technical bets, the platform mindset to drive the investments that move the business forward, and the leadership presence to build and retain a world-class team in a domain where the stakes are always high
- This role is based in our Menlo Park, CA office, with in-person attendance expected 5 days per week
- At Robinhood, we believe in the power of in-person work to accelerate progress, spark innovation, and strengthen community. Our office experience is intentional, energizing, and designed to fully support high-performing teams
- Own the full engineering strategy and delivery for Brokerage Platform — spanning Market Data & Symbology, Trading Platform, Clearing, and Brokerage Infrastructure — setting the technical direction and ensuring the org executes with reliability and conviction
- Lead and develop a large, distributed engineering organization of senior and staff-level engineers and engineering managers — building the talent, culture, and bench strength the org needs to sustain high performance over time
- Drive platform investments that have direct business impact — identifying the modernization, reliability, and scalability bets worth making, building the conviction behind them, and seeing them through to measurable outcomes
- Partner tightly with your TPM counterpart to manage a high volume of incoming asks from trading, crypto, active trader, and event contracts product teams — prioritizing ruthlessly and protecting engineering capacity for the work that matters most
- Own the reliability and operational health of systems that run continuously around market-critical functions — ensuring the org is prepared for high-severity incidents and has the processes and tooling to resolve them fast
- Engage deeply with cross-functional leadership across Robinhood — representing Brokerage Platform's roadmap, dependencies, and capabilities to product, ops, and executive stakeholders
- Champion platform modernization and technical debt reduction — driving initiatives like stack rewrites, sharding, multi-region scaling, and infrastructure abstractions that unlock velocity across the entire engineering org
- Our ambitious roadmap requires a great culture shaped by exceptional leaders. Here’s what we expect from them:
- Drive high performance by setting clear, focused goals, giving real-time feedback, stretching top talent, and scaling impact through focus, innovation, and tech
- Hire and retain top talent by setting a high bar, hiring only those who raise it, investing in onboarding, and addressing talent issues quickly and fairly
- Create community by connecting work to purpose, removing friction while prioritizing safety, building trust and inclusion, and leading from the front with integrity
Our take
For years, traditional brokers ruled the share trading realm, charging hefty fees that locked out everyday investors. Robinhood emerged as a disruptor, offering commission-free trading and opening the door to a new generation. Since then, expectations have continued to evolve, with investors looking not just to lower costs, but for simpler tools, clearer information, and guidance that makes the market easier to understand.
Robinhood was built to meet those changing expectations, designed from the start as a mobile-first platform that makes investor more accessible and less intimidating for people at every stage of their financial journey. Through its app, users can trade stocks and other financial instruments while benefiting from a clean interface and built-in educational support, helping them move from curiosity to confidence without unnecessary complexity.
Recently, Robinhood has strenghtned its impact too, particularly in the UK. With the launch of AI-powered Digests within its Robinhood Cortex assistant that helps users understand what's driving stock movements in plain English, while upcoming options trading and expanded educational resources add flexibility and depth. Together, these steps position Robinhood as a platform evolving alongside its users, blending technology and education to stay ahead in an ever-changing investment landscape.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 13 rounds)
Feb 2021
$2.4bn
CONVERTIBLE
Jan 2021
$1bn
LATE VC
Total funding: $5.6bn
Company HQ
Downtown Menlo Park, Menlo Park, CA
Leadership
Vlad Tenev
(Co-Founder, CEO & Chairman)Studied Mathematics at Stanford University, where they met Baiju. Dropped out of a PhD to start Robinhood. Alongside Robinhood, Vlad is also the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Harmonic.
Baiju B.
(Co-Founder)Studied Mathematics and Physics at Stanford University, where they met their Vlad and co-founded Robinhood in 2012. Baiju is also the Founder and CEO of Aetherflux.
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