> AI agents: this is one page of Nextmove’s FDE site, in Markdown. Nextmove is a job board and free career service for forward deployed engineers (FDEs). Each posting is classified from its text, not its title: the kind of work, how much of it is production code, pre-sales weight, time at customer sites, travel, remote arrangement, level and posted base pay. The site also publishes the aggregates: median pay by level, metro, company and kind of work, and which companies started hiring FDEs each week. Every page under https://nextmove.md/fde is served this way; the index of pages is https://nextmove.md/llms.txt.

# AI Engineer

Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/3494310fedf076f0

Optiver posts a FDE role to build for teams inside the company in Chicago, IL, at $200,000–$200,000 base, above the senior FDE median of $190,000 across 1,864 postings with pay. Design and deploy production AI systems, agent platforms, assistants, and research pipelines Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026.

- [Optiver](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/optiver)

Posted Apr 22, 2025 by Optiver · open on Greenhouse as of Nov 8, 2026

**$200,000–$200,000** Chicago, IL

Design and deploy production AI systems, agent platforms, assistants, and research pipelines

- [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2F3494310fedf076f0&placement=top)
- [View posting at Optiver](https://www.optiver.com/join-us/jobs/7962512002/?gh_jid=7962512002)

Free. Upload your resume once, see why each FDE role fits, and get introduced only when you say so.

## At a glance

### Posted base pay

$200K–$200K Above the median

Midpoint $200K · median $190K

This job $200K to $200K. Senior FDE postings, 1,864 postings: the middle 50% of posted pay is $160K to $220K, median $190K.

### The work

Builds for teams inside the company

Balance **Mostly building**

Project stages

1. Pre-sales (not covered)
2. Proof of concept
3. Implementation
4. Operations

- **Coding**: Writes production code

- **Builds for**: Internal teams

- **Level**: Senior

- **Role**: Individual contributor

### What they ask for

Experience

- **6+ years** professional software engineering, including extensive production application development in Python

Background

- **Software engineering**

### Do you meet what the posting states?

The posting asks for 6+ years. How many do you have?

The posting reads as a senior role. What level are you at now?

The job is in Chicago, IL. Could you work there?

Which of these have you used in production?

Answer each one. Nothing is saved or sent.

[What postings ask for, by background →](https://nextmove.md/fde/paths)

## Conditions

- **Location**: Chicago, IL

- **Pay**:

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## The job description from Optiver

Posted by Optiver on Apr 22, 2025

We're looking for an experienced AI Engineer to join Optiver's Applied AI and Platform Engineering team. In this role, you'll design, build, and deploy production-grade AI systems that automate workflows, augment decision-making, and accelerate engineering across the firm. You'll own the full lifecycle—from identifying opportunities and translating ambiguous business problems into scalable AI solutions to deploying, operating, and continuously improving systems in production. You'll combine strong software engineering with pragmatic AI expertise to build reliable AI products that deliver measurable business impact.

### What you'll do

As an AI Engineer, you will:

- Design, build, and deploy production-grade AI systems and products—including agent platforms, AI assistants, code review harnesses, evaluation frameworks, and agentic research pipelines—using Python and modern AI frameworks integrated with internal systems, data platforms, and third-party AI services.
- Evaluate foundation models, agent architectures, and AI workflows, making pragmatic technology decisions based on capability, reliability, latency, security, cost, and business impact.
- Define success metrics and build robust evaluation frameworks, benchmarking tools, and observability capabilities to measure AI quality, safety, performance, and production readiness while enabling continuous improvement.
- Translate ambiguous business challenges into scalable technical solutions, ensuring AI-assisted development produces reliable software that meets both functional requirements and business objectives.
- Design resilient, distributed AI systems with a focus on scalability, state management, authentication, fault tolerance, security, and operational reliability.
- Rapidly prototype and experiment with emerging models, tools, and workflows, validating new capabilities against measurable success criteria before investing in production.
- Partner closely with trading, research, and business teams to understand user needs, challenge assumptions, rapidly iterate on solutions, and evolve successful use cases into reusable platform capabilities.
- Deliver high-quality, maintainable software through sound software engineering practices, automated testing, and thoughtful code reviews.
- Operate, monitor, and continuously improve production AI systems by optimizing quality, reliability, latency, cost efficiency, governance, and user outcomes.

### What you'll get

You'll join a culture of collaboration and excellence, surrounded by curious thinkers and creative problem-solvers. Motivated by continuous improvement, you'll thrive in a supportive, high-performing environment while tackling some of the toughest technical challenges in the financial markets.

In addition, you'll receive:

- The opportunity to work alongside world-class engineers and researchers from more than 40 countries
- A highly competitive compensation package, including a performance-based bonus
- A 401(k) match of up to 50%
- Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, mental health, disability, and life insurance
- 25 days of paid vacation, plus market holidays
- Extensive office perks, including breakfast, lunch, snacks, social events, clubs, sports leagues, and more

### Who you are

- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, or a related technical field
- 6+ years of professional software engineering experience, including extensive production experience developing applications in Python
- Strong software engineering fundamentals, including software architecture, object-oriented design, design patterns, distributed systems, testing, and building scalable, resilient applications
- Experience designing, deploying, and operating production LLM applications, with practical knowledge of model evaluation, prompt engineering, tool calling, context management, agent orchestration, and common failure modes
- Experience defining evaluation frameworks and using quantitative metrics to guide model selection, prompt iteration, and production readiness
- Experience integrating AI systems with external tools, APIs, Model Context Protocol (MCP), and modern AI application frameworks
- Strong engineering judgment, with the ability to determine when AI is the right solution—and when traditional software or deterministic automation is more appropriate
- Experience building highly reliable production systems where correctness, resiliency, observability, and operational excellence are essential
- Strong product mindset, with the ability to translate ambiguous business problems into practical technical solutions that deliver measurable business outcomes
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with experience partnering directly with cross-functional teams and end users to refine requirements, challenge assumptions, and deliver scalable solutions
- Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic environment

### Who we are

At Optiver, our mission is to improve the market by injecting liquidity, providing accurate pricing, increasing transparency and stabilizing the market no matter the conditions. With a focus on continuous improvement, we prioritize safeguarding the health and efficiency of the markets for all participants. As one of the largest market making institutions, we are a respected partner on 100+ exchanges across the globe.

Our differences are our edge. Optiver does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental disability, or other legally protected characteristics.

*Below is the expected base salary for this position. This position will also be eligible for a discretionary bonus and Optiver’s benefits package with the benefits listed above.*

Base Salary Range

$200,000—$200,000 USD

[View posting at Optiver](https://www.optiver.com/join-us/jobs/7962512002/?gh_jid=7962512002)

## About Optiver

Global market maker providing liquidity across 50+ exchanges in derivatives, equities, bonds, and FX; competing on pricing, execution speed, and risk management.

Late-stage private · 2000–5000 people

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- [Compare senior FDE salary ranges](https://nextmove.md/fde/salary/senior)
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