Principal Engineer - Ledger Core
MSCI Inc · New York, NY, US
About this role
## Principal Engineer - Ledger Core ### Team Responsibilities - Design and defend the core invariant that **money is never created or destroyed** as it moves through the system. - Own the **Ledger Core**: an **immutable, append-only, bi-temporal event store** that all returns, risk figures, and valuation traces depend on. - Set the boundary of the core: decide with precision what belongs in a **small, provably correct kernel** vs. what stays outside it as the platform scales across asset classes and consuming teams. ### Key Responsibilities - **Storage design:** Build an append-only **prefix-KV** layout under the event log, optimized for **write-once, read-many** access and long-horizon replay. - **Money model:** Use **integer minor units**, **Int128 arithmetic**, and **versioned units** to prevent rounding/float-drift from entering the book of record. - **Conservation invariant:** Enforce an **exact-integer check at the commit point** (not reconciled after the fact). - **Commit protocol:** Implement **vector-clock-based commit ordering** and **consistent-cut semantics** across concurrent writers. - **Core boundary discipline:** Continuously judge what remains inside the immutable kernel vs. what is pushed to plug-ins and quant services. ### Agentic Development Expectation - Define the standard for how the team uses **AI coding agents** against the core. - Specify which parts of the core are safe to delegate to agentic implementation **against a written invariant**, and which require a **human holding the pen**. - Write **specs and property tests** that make agentic contributions safe—without expanding scope to accommodate risk. ### Skills & Experience **Required Background** - **8+ years** building high-integrity, low-level storage or ledger systems in production (preferably financial infrastructure, payments, or exchange-grade systems). - Deep fluency in a modern, type-safe systems language (**Go, Rust, or similar**), with strong reasoning about memory layout, allocation, and concurrency primitives. - Hands-on experience with **event sourcing** and **append-only log** architectures at scale. - Strong working knowledge of **MVCC**, **vector clocks**, and **consistent-cut / distributed-snapshot** theory. - A demonstrated bias toward **minimal, defensible cores** over feature accumulation (including examples of saying “no” to scope). **Preferred / Bonus** - Prior ownership of a ledger, general ledger engine, or exchange matching/settlement core. - Experience with formal or semi-formal invariant specification (**TLA+**, **Alloy**, or similar). - Exposure to private markets or fund accounting data models. ### About MSCI — What We Offer - **Salary range:** **$259,000 - $337,000 / year** + eligible annual bonus. - Transparent compensation and comprehensive benefits tailored to your location. - Flexible working arrangements, advanced technology, and collaborative workspaces. - High-performance, innovation-focused culture. - Global network of talented colleagues and learning opportunities (including **Learning@MSCI** and the **AI Learning Center**). - Multi-directional career paths and internal mobility. - Inclusion and belonging supported through multiple Employee Resource Groups. ### Equal Opportunity MSCI is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities. For accommodation requests, email **Disability.Assistance@msci.com**. *Note: MSCI does not accept unsolicit
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