Software Engineer Trainee

Location

Paris

Type

Full-time

Department

Engineering

Overview

Structure.fi is a venture-backed startup building the default platform for AI-designed algorithmic trading strategies in crypto.

We’re looking for elite software engineers who want to work onsite, full-time, Sunday–Thursday, in a high-intensity, high-upside environment.

This is not a cushy remote job, and it’s not a French-corporate-style CDI.
You’ll join a tiny, senior team (~7 people) with founders from MIT and Jump Trading, backed by Polychain Capital, to build real trading infrastructure: execution, risk, monitoring – not toy retail dashboards.

If you’re optimizing for growth, impact, and upside (not “balance”), and you like the idea of helping build a billion‑dollar company in ~18 months, keep reading.

Key responsibilities

  • Design, build, and operate backend and infrastructure for AI-driven algorithmic trading in crypto.

  • Work closely with founders on:

    • Low-latency execution systems

    • Data pipelines and model integration

    • Risk and monitoring infrastructure in production

  • Ship real features to production fast, iterate based on live performance, and own your systems end-to-end.

  • Help define and enforce engineering standards (code quality, testing, performance, observability).

  • Collaborate directly with a small, high-caliber team in the office every day.

  • Contribute to technical decision-making on architecture, tools, and tradeoffs.

  • Embrace startup intensity: nights and weekends when objectives require it. Not for vanity, but to win.

Qualifications

We care more about capability and trajectory than fancy titles. As a benchmark, you likely have:

  • Strong programming skills in at least one systems/backend language (e.g. Rust, C++, Go, Java, or similar).

  • Experience building production systems where correctness, performance, and reliability matter.

  • Solid understanding of:

    • Data structures & algorithms

    • Concurrency and distributed systems basics

    • Systems performance (profiling, optimization)

  • Comfort working close to:

    • Infra / dev tooling / distributed systems, and/or

    • Low-latency / trading / real-time systems

Bonus points (not required, but strong signals):

  • Experience in trading, quant, HFT, or financial infrastructure.

  • Experience with crypto (exchanges, wallets, DeFi primitives).

  • Experience with AI/ML systems in production.

Mindset (non‑negotiable):

  • You want intensity and accountability. You’d rather be stretched than bored.

  • You are competitive: you like to win, you like to get better, you like hard problems.

  • You communicate clearly: you can explain complex technical ideas in simple language.

  • You think like an owner, not an employee. You care about the outcome, not just your ticket queue.

Logistics:

  • Onsite in Paris, in the office every workday.

  • You can legally work as an independent contractor in France (micro‑entrepreneur / auto‑entrepreneur or equivalent), or are willing to set that up.

What we offer

  • A B2B freelance engagement with a high-caliber, venture-backed team (Polychain, MIT, Jump).

  • A very competitive daily rate, invoiced monthly by the contractor under their own independent legal status.

  • A 3-month initial evaluation phase to determine whether both sides want to continue the collaboration long-term.

  • After a successful evaluation period, Structure.fi may choose—at its discretion—to offer:

    • Access to onsite meals for convenience.

    • Optional performance-based incentives defined contractually.

    • Potential equity participation through a separate agreement.

    • Case-by-case administrative or relocation support for contractors who want to be closer to the office.

  • No traditional employment benefits are provided, as this is not an employment relationship.