Chicago has tech innovation built into its bones. Quite literally.
From the World’s Fair laying the groundwork for innovation in 1893 to the forthcoming quantum computing campus on Chicago’s south side, Chicago has a long history with innovation, and today’s tech scene in the Windy City is no different.
The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce boasts that the area has the highest share of female founders in the world, with 34 percent of startups founded by women. The Chamber also notes that the tech ecosystem in the city is more diverse than the national average, sitting at 32 percent compared to 19 percent nationally.
In honor of the innovators who call Chicago home, Built In found five tech companies in the Windy City that are actively hiring and looking for brilliant minds to join their teams.
Enova International is a financial technology company providing online financial services through its machine learning-powered lending platform.
What is your role, and what attracted you to Enova? Describe the moment when you knew you’d found the right fit.
I’m a technology manager at Enova, managing tech teams focused on creating, enhancing and supporting our various loan products and offerings. When I started with Enova 11 years ago, the things that attracted me the most were the company’s focus on its people, a culture that supported inclusion and growth, as well as the tech stack. The entire recruiting process was very smooth and filled with opportunities to connect with my future team, even after the interviews were completed. I knew I had found the right place to work that valued building strong people connections.
What’s your favorite part about working at Enova?
A collaborative team environment, a people-focused culture and learning opportunities have been my favorite parts of working at Enova. My journey here has been filled with opportunities to steer my career in any direction I wanted with great support from leadership — whether it meant having open communication channels to discuss and collaboratively work toward career goals or having the autonomy to make decisions to deliver successful projects. Enova provides you a place to learn, grow and showcase your abilities.
What advice would you give to jobseekers looking to join your growing team?
My advice to job seekers looking to join Enova would be to learn as much as possible about the company before and during the recruiting process and understand how it aligns with their own preferences and goals. Enova has five values that guide us in everything we do; we live them day in and day out. Enova has great things to offer, including team culture, a people focus, learning opportunities and attractive perks. It’s driven by its values and is truly an awesome place to work!
Pangea offers customers a smarter way to move money around the world to friends and family.
What is your role, and what attracted you to Pangea Money Transfer? Describe the moment when you knew you’d found the right fit.
I am a software engineer, and throughout my career in finance, I struggled to feel fulfilled working on projects that primarily served the wealthy. What drew me to Pangea was that they are providing an essential service for anyone, and more so one that is utilized by individuals to support loved ones across borders. It felt like a company that would allow my work to have meaning. Truly, Pangea felt like the right fit right away and that feeling has only been reinforced through all the work being done.
What’s your favorite part about working at Pangea Money Transfer?
My favorite part about working at Pangea is definitely the team culture and the projects. The ability to collaborate constructively, whether it’s troubleshooting issues or brainstorming the best solution, is incredibly refreshing. Every new feature or enhancement offers an opportunity to learn and grow, and having a knowledgeable and supportive team makes that process even easier.
What advice would you give to jobseekers looking to join your growing team?
I think no matter where you are in your career, there’s always room for improvement and growth. My advice for anyone looking to join the team would be to not only have confidence in your skills but also an eagerness to learn and adapt. Being open to new challenges and constantly evolving will help you thrive here.
More than 1.8 million futures traders use NinjaTrader’s award-winning software and brokerage services to help them trade.
What is your role, and what attracted you to NinjaTrader? Describe the moment when you knew you’d found the right fit.
I work in AI/ML, focusing on operationalizing machine learning models to enhance NinjaTrader’s products. What attracted me to NinjaTrader was the fantastic people and the opportunity to learn more about the futures trading space. I knew I had found the right fit when I experienced the collaborative and approachable culture firsthand — everyone I interacted with was smart, helpful and great to work with.
What’s your favorite part about working at NinjaTrader?
My favorite part about working at NinjaTrader is the combination of engaging projects and a strong team culture. I enjoy building innovative solutions, collaborating across teams and continuously learning. The company fosters an open, collaborative environment that makes problem-solving and innovation enjoyable.
What advice would you give to jobseekers looking to join your growing team?
For jobseekers interested in joining NinjaTrader, I’d recommend focusing on how you can contribute to customer success. Be ready to collaborate across teams, embrace continuous learning and bring an innovative mindset. The company values people who are both technically skilled and eager to make an impact.
Gelber Group, a Chicago-based global proprietary trading company, has set the bar as one of the industry’s most innovative and enduring firms.
What is your role, and what attracted you to Gelber Group? Describe the moment when you knew you’d found the right fit.
As a senior software engineer at the Gelber Group in Chicago, my role involves designing, developing and maintaining complex software systems that support our trading and clearing operations. Recently moving to the United States from New Zealand last year, I was looking to further my technical knowledge working in the markets, and Gelber seemed like a great fit. I was intrigued by the cross-collaboration between teams of different skill sets, and how a proprietary trading firm builds and manages its in-house software at scale.
After a smooth interview process and starting into my first few weeks, getting to know and work with my team confirmed that Gelber was the perfect place for me to grow and thrive as a software engineer. The team was extremely supportive of my move, and I was afforded plenty of trust and autonomy to execute on projects right off the bat, diving into solving problems in the diverse currency settlement world in my first week.
What’s your favorite part about working at Gelber Group?
I really appreciate the diversity of work at Gelber, and interacting with all the different internal customers our software serves. Each one comes with its own unique set of challenges, whether it’s significantly improving an older process, supporting new products to trade and clear, to monitoring and evolving our capital requirement algorithms. One day I might be catching up with the CFO on capital requirements, and the next working alongside algorithmic traders understanding their use-cases on some specialized data sources.
The team culture is fantastic; there’s plenty of conversations going around the office, and it’s easy to jump over to the right team to tackle a new problem in person, side-by-side. The hybrid work style also aligns perfectly with me, allowing us to catch up as a team in person, quickly getting on the same page, and on other days using our time more flexibly from home. I also love that my team has been on top of celebrating our wins, going out to dinner and events across Chicago regularly.
The office location is awesome and well-equipped; being right by the Merchandise Mart lets me soak in some summer sunshine on the Riverwalk to and from my walk to work.
What advice would you give to jobseekers looking to join your growing team?
I’ve got a couple of simple pieces of advice: Be passionate and embrace learning. Passion and proactivity are so important at Gelber, in taking ownership of larger challenges and growing throughout the journey. If you have an area of technical expertise and passion, make sure to let that shine through in the interview process, as it helps immensely to demonstrate your ability and potential. Even if it’s a personal project you’ve been building, it makes a great point of conversation toward your diversity of skills. Since projects can be very collaborative, you never know what cross-functional skill set might be required for the next.
Embracing continuous learning and development is also a major positive, as we’re always vetting and embracing modern technologies to bring into our in-house software stack, along with continuously evolving our current platforms. For example, I’ve been having a great time modernizing our back-office Python tooling and standards, then being able to share those learnings with the wider company.
Quantum Rise is a new kind of AI consultancy that combines the best in human ability with the full power of AI.
What is your role, and what attracted you to Quantum Rise? Describe the moment when you knew you’d found the right fit.
I am the head of data engineering at Quantum Rise. Quantum Rise is taking a fresh approach to consulting with a focus on translating the latest technological developments in the AI/ML space into business value for their clients as well as for their own operations. This indicated that I would be in an environment where I could continuously learn and utilize the latest tools and technologies, allowing me to be nimble in addressing clients’ business and technical challenges.
Furthermore, Quantum Rise prioritizes developing products over merely executing projects. This shift from the traditional consulting mindset of billable hours to creating production-ready solutions that deliver long-term value for clients was a key factor for me, as I chose this career to build solutions, not merely make recommendations.
I was confident that I found the right fit when our CTO Justin Bass provided a demonstration of a product that Quantum Rise had developed for a client. With my prior experience in the client’s industry, I immediately recognized that the solution was right sized for the clients’ needs, neither underselling nor overselling what could be achieved for their use case.
What’s your favorite part about working at Quantum Rise?
There are several aspects of working for Quantum Rise that I value, so it is a bit difficult to select one favorite. I will cheat a bit and list two: First and foremost, I value the fact that I am working with a tight-knit, smart and eager team. I have yet to see anyone on the Quantum Rise team shy away from raising her or his hand to help a colleague or dive into a new challenge.
As a company we are committed to demonstrating the value of new technology (specifically AI/ML). We practice what we preach, so I love the fact that every day I am learning about new and interesting tools as well as AI/ML use cases from my peers. I also truly value contributing to that discourse, so hopefully my peers are learning a bit from me as well!
What advice would you give to jobseekers looking to join your growing team?
The industry is evolving rapidly; my advice is to balance foundational skills with exposure to new tools and technologies. From the perspective of foundational skills, develop expertise with Python and SQL! This is no secret, but both will be relevant for the foreseeable future so prioritize them.
Familiarize yourself with multiple cloud data lake/lakehouse/warehouse platforms. In your career you will likely work with multiple different platforms, so try to gain experience with the major players.
Do not just focus on a solution that works as a proof of concept. If it has value, it will need to be deployed on a larger scale, so thinking ahead and anticipating the needs of a production system will pay dividends!
From the perspective of new tools and technologies, focus on continually expanding your skill set: Stay in tune with the development of the tools that you use, and if those tools are open source, be an active player in that community.
Keep up to date on new tools and technologies. Wherever possible, try them out and develop a level of comfort with them, as well as a point of view on their advantages and disadvantages. Your future colleagues will appreciate your knowledge.
