Principal Engineer, Ledger Core

MSCI

Confirmed live yesterday High trust

Quick summary

Work type: On-site
Location: New York, NY
Salary: $259,000–$337,000 / yr
Posted: 2 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live yesterday
Nearby: 99+ roles within 25 mi

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $195k

This role $298k

$119k $360k

below market most similar roles pay here above market

This role pays more than 94% of similar roles. Most pay $174,600–$215,700 — the blue band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $298k versus about $195k for comparable roles.

Based on 240 similar postings.

Employer

About MSCI

MSCI is a US-based provider of investment decision support tools, including equity indexes, portfolio risk and performance analytics, and ESG research used by institutional investors worldwide.

MSCI currently has 15 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $128,000–$205,000 across 15 roles with salary data.

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At a glance

TL;DR · Principal Engineer, Ledger Core

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As a Principal Engineer - Ledger Core, you will join the team responsible for the immutable, append-only, bi-temporal event store that serves as the foundation for all quant models. You will design and defend the core invariant that money is never created or destroyed during system movement. Your daily responsibilities include designing storage for append-only prefix-KV layouts, implementing Int128 arithmetic for the money model, and enforcing conservation invariants at the commit point. You will manage commit protocols using vector-clocks and consistent-cut semantics while defining boundaries for the core kernel. The role requires 8+ years of experience in high-integrity storage or ledger systems using type-safe languages like Go or Rust. You must possess expertise in event sourcing, MVCC, and formal invariant specifications like TLA+ or Alloy.

What does a Engineer earn in New York?

Median $219000 from 45 postings across 16 companies.

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Skills

Go Rust Event Sourcing MVCC Vector Clocks TLA+ Alloy Concurrency Int128 Arithmetic Consistent-cut Semantics

What you'll do

Design the append-only prefix-KV storage layout optimized for write-once, read-many access patterns.
Implement the money model using integer minor units and Int128 arithmetic to prevent rounding errors.
Enforce a conservation invariant through exact-integer checks at the commit point.
Develop a commit protocol using vector-clock based ordering and consistent-cut semantics.
Maintain the core boundary by deciding which components stay inside the immutable kernel.
Write specifications and property tests to ensure safe AI agentic implementation of the core.

What we're looking for

8+ years of experience building high-integrity, low-level storage or ledger systems in production.
Deep fluency in a modern, type-safe systems language like Go or Rust.
Ability to reason precisely about memory layout, allocation, and concurrency primitives.
Hands-on experience with event sourcing and append-only log architectures at scale.
Working command of MVCC, vector clocks, and consistent-cut or distributed-snapshot theory.
Prior ownership of a ledger, general ledger engine, or exchange matching/settlement core (preferred).
Experience with formal or semi-formal invariant specification using TLA+, Alloy, or comparable (preferred).
Exposure to private markets or fund accounting data models (preferred).

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