Top Staff Engineer Jobs in Chicago, IL

Build and validate computational models of combustion, heat transfer, fluid flows, and fire/explosion scenarios using commercial CFD and FEA tools. Perform pre/post-processing, analyze results, document modeling approaches, run validation experiments, write technical reports, and communicate findings to internal and external stakeholders. Collaborate with industry and academics and present at conferences.

Lead design and implementation of the Tax platform: build scalable, fault-tolerant systems, improve extensibility, mentor engineers, drive technical strategy and roadmap, collaborate cross-functionally, improve reliability/incident response, and build AI guardrails to safely leverage agentic LLMs for tax compliance.

As a Principal Engineer, you will design, scale, and lead the development of Adyen's financial products while mentoring engineers and collaborating with product teams.

Lead the evolution of Adyen's merchant onboarding process by architecting systems that optimize activation and compliance, utilizing applied AI to automate merchant document interpretation and KYC processes.

Lead integration, validation, and fielding of advanced weapon capabilities on X-Bat across the full lifecycle. Define system behaviors and architectures, coordinate cross-functional integration, support lab/ground/flight tests, perform troubleshooting and root-cause analysis to reduce integration risk and accelerate capability delivery.

Design, develop, and field high-performance Ground Control Station and C2 software using C++/Qt/QML and QGroundControl. Lead architecture and technical direction, mentor engineers, define APIs/ICDs, debug integration/latency issues, support field tests, implement post-mission debrief tools, and ensure interoperability with C2 standards.

Own and maintain native C++ build systems for autonomous aircraft. Improve developer velocity by reducing build/test cycle time, integrate CI with HIL and simulation, implement monitoring and alerts, troubleshoot build/test failures, and collaborate with engineers to design and deploy DevEx/DevOps solutions.

Lead aircraft-level thermal analysis and characterization for VTOL unmanned aircraft. Develop and validate analytical and CFD models, run trade studies, define requirements, plan and analyze thermal tests, mentor teams, and mitigate aircraft thermal risks to meet mission-critical aerospace requirements.

Lead design and development of advanced electrical systems for autonomous aircraft, including circuit and subsystem design, part selection, schematic capture, simulation, verification, debugging, and production releases. Integrate embedded systems and sensors for autonomy, coordinate cross-functional teams, mentor engineers, define technical requirements, and develop automated test solutions to improve hardware reliability and production readiness.

Lead survivability engineering for autonomous aircraft: design and optimize low-observable features, perform EM signature modeling and RCS testing, partner with multidisciplinary teams and materials scientists, translate threats into survivability requirements, and support assessments and milestone decisions throughout the program lifecycle.

The role involves leading the Code Gen team to modernize legacy applications using AI-powered tools, ensuring system scalability and efficiency through collaboration and strategic technical decisions.

Architect and deliver scalable, secure systems across teams; solve complex cross-team problems; lead large technical initiatives; evaluate emerging technologies; mentor engineers; align technical direction with product and business outcomes while balancing performance, maintainability, and cost.

As a Senior Staff Engineer at Braze, you will lead technical initiatives in the Channels division, ensuring effective message delivery, mentoring engineers, and enhancing architectural quality while actively contributing to software development.

Design, build, and maintain People systems automations and integrations (Workato, Workday, Greenhouse, Slack) using production-quality code. Improve CI/CD, reliability, observability, and AI-driven automation (Claude, MCP). Serve as technical lead for People Technology, partner with stakeholders, and drive scalable, maintainable automation solutions.

Design and extend actor-like programming notations and compiler toolchains for an event-driven graph accelerator. Implement code generation, register and locality management, data-movement optimizations, and performance profiling. Maintain and extend compiler frameworks (LLVM/GCC/MLIR) and optimize for parallelism, memory hierarchy, and specialized hardware.

Lead the developer experience roadmap and own multi-language SDKs and the code-generation pipeline. Design CI, release automation, observability, and tooling (CLI, starter repos). Improve cross-language parity, docs, and developer onboarding; remove systemic friction and represent DX to Product, Engineering, and Partnerships.

Design, build, and own scalable microservices and secure APIs that transfer value across blockchain and banking protocols. Extend in-house blockchain infrastructure, integrate with banks and cloud services, troubleshoot production issues, document system and testing procedures, and collaborate with product and engineering teams to deliver reliable payment experiences.

Design, build, and operate the core data warehouse, ingestion, orchestration, and cataloging platform. Develop batch and streaming pipelines, ensure data quality, governance, observability, and provide ML data platform capabilities. Lead architecture, improve platform reliability and performance, and collaborate with product, engineering, data science, security, and compliance teams.

As a Senior Site Reliability Engineer, you'll design and build complex systems, support Atlas platform operations, automate processes, and ensure high availability of services.

Design and implement a distributed query optimization system for MongoDB. Research query systems, architect features, write and review production-quality C++ code, debug large codebases, coordinate cross-team integrations, and mentor engineers while shaping long-term roadmap and performance improvements.

Leads high-impact full-stack initiatives for Braze’s AI Decisioning products, building polished dashboard experiences, APIs, data models, background jobs, and services connected to machine-learning pipelines. Shapes web architecture for scalability and performance, influences product strategy, mentors engineers, drives technical consensus, and supports teams implementing AI solutions. Requires strong TypeScript and React expertise, scalable web application architecture experience, agentic development proficiency, and effective cross-functional communication.

Serve as the end-to-end Test Director for integrating, verifying, and flight testing Hivemind autonomy on small UAS. Own test readiness and execution, plan and run fly-fix-fly campaigns, set test strategy and success criteria, lead cross-functional teams, manage risk and safety-of-flight, define test infrastructure (SIL/HIL/simulation), approve procedures, document results, and report to leadership and customers.

Lead the SRE function for NinjaTrader’s trading platform, ensuring availability, scalability, performance, and 99.95% uptime. Responsibilities include managing Kubernetes services, resolving production incidents, participating in a 12x7 on-call rotation, automating deployments and operational tasks, designing monitoring and alerting systems, establishing SLIs/SLOs, using Terraform for infrastructure automation, and implementing cloud security and compliance practices. The role also mentors engineers and collaborates cross-functionally on reliable platform delivery.

Architect and build microservices using Node.js and Rust, work with cross-functional teams to deliver quality customer-focused features, and improve agile processes.

Responsible for the development, testing, and deployment of complex solutions, collaborating with multiple teams and overseeing technical strategies and architecture. Lead engineering efforts, mentor engineers, and improve engineering standards.