---
title: 'Creative Director at NinjaTrader'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/creative-director-ninjatrader-chicago-ymxjt26watwz'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-20'
---

# Creative Director at NinjaTrader

- **Company:** NinjaTrader
- **Location:** Chicago, IL
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-09-23
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-20
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/ninjatrader/jobs/4716071006

## Job description

Disclaimer: Please be advised that the most accurate and up-to-date information about our open roles—including job descriptions, compensation, and benefits—can only be guaranteed on our official job board. For the latest listings and details, please visit: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/ninjatrader.

JOIN US ON OUR MISSION TO BECOME THE #1 RETAIL TRADING PLATFORM IN THE WORLD

Welcome to the dynamic world of NinjaTrader! As an industry-leading trading platform and futures broker, we're empowering traders to take control of their financial destiny. How do we do it? We provide cutting-edge products and services that enhance the trading journey. Whether a seasoned pro or just starting out, NinjaTrader equips traders with award-winning software and brokerage services to navigate the world's leading financial markets with confidence.

Our growth story is nothing short of exhilarating. Since 2003, NinjaTrader has been dedicated to understanding and supporting traders on their journey toward trading triumph. Through those efforts, our user base has grown to over 2 million users and we have become the number one rated futures brokerage worldwide.

But we're not stopping there. We're constantly evolving, pushing boundaries, and modernizing the futures industry. Our commitment to innovation means users will always have access to dynamic tools, real-time support, and a community of like-minded traders.

So, why work at NinjaTrader? Here, you're not just part of a team; you're part of a movement. We empower employees to reach new heights in their careers by providing a dynamic culture focused on social connection, professional development, and employee recognition initiatives. Sounds too good to be true? [Take it from our employees.](https://www.greatplacetowork.com/certified-company/7025362)

Join us as we redefine what's possible in trading, advocate for our customers, and continue our journey toward becoming the world's top retail-focused trading platform in the world.

What you'll do:

NinjaTrader is hiring a Creative Director to own how the company looks, sounds and feels across every marketing surface  a consumer encounters. This is the senior-most creative role in the marketing organization, reporting directly to the CMO.

Our brand strategy and positioning are sharp, but the visual expression lags behind.. This is an opportunity to level up our visual identity to reflect the dynamic and growing nature of the brands we have in market. Then your job is to make it real — operationalize it, extend it into the places it doesn't yet reach, and defend it as volume scales. After that, you own the creative standard for the group.

This is a hands-on leadership role. You will set direction, and you will still be in the file. We are not hiring someone to run a review calendar.

Trading is a category of noise: identical charts, identical claims, identical stock photography of men in headsets. The mandate is to make NinjaTrader unmistakable.

In this role you will:

The marketing identity system

- Operationalize the incoming brand identity system — typography, color, photography and illustration direction, motion language, iconography, layout systems — and extend it into the surfaces it does not yet cover
- Own the marketing design system: build it to scale across campaign, web, lifecycle and partner surfaces, and to hold up when other hands use it
- Establish the governance that keeps the system intact — standards, documentation, review, and the authority to say no
- Act as the final quality gate on brand expression across marketing

Creative output and storytelling

- Concept and direct integrated campaigns from brief to launch — video, social, paid, OOH, sponsorship, events
- Develop the narrative, not just the look. You will shape the story a piece of video tells, then art-direct the production that delivers it
- Own marketing web and landing page design, including the pages that carry acquisition and conversion volume
- Direct lifecycle and product marketing creative so the experience stays coherent from first impression to funded account
- Stay personally in the work on hero projects — concepting, designing, writing direction, cutting with the editor

## Team and partners

- Hire, manage and develop a small in-house design team; set the critique culture and the standard
- Brief, direct and evaluate agencies, production partners and freelancers; own creative quality of outsourced work
- Build the operating rhythm — briefs, reviews, handoffs — that lets a small team ship at volume
- Grow into broader creative ownership over time, including copy and video production

Cross-functional leadership

- Partner with Product Design on shared brand guidelines so marketing and platform surfaces stay recognizably the same brand. Product Design owns the product design system; you own the marketing one. The two are deliberately scoped differently and should stay that way
- Work with performance marketing to build creative that is testable, iterable and measured against funnel outcomes
- Operate fluently inside a regulated marketing environment, partnering with compliance early rather than treating review as a downstream tax

What you'll need:

- 8+ years of brand and creative experience, with 2+ years leading a team as an ACD, CD or design lead
- A portfolio built on systems, not one-offs
- Storytelling range — able to develop narrative, not only art-direct someone else's script
- Range across brand campaign work and performance creative
- A desire to remain hands-on — actively driven to stay in the work, not just direct it
- Fluency with AI tooling in the creative process
- A track record of managing designers and directing external agencies
- Comfort with performance data

Bonus Points for:

- Fintech, brokerage, trading, crypto or exchange experience, or genuine curiosity about markets and retail traders
- Experience operationalizing an inherited identity system rather than only building from scratch
- Experience running a marketing design system alongside a separately owned product design system
- Experience in a constrained or regulated environment — finance, healthcare, insurance, pharma or gaming
- Practicing a craft outside the day job — photography, film, writing or illustration
- Agency background plus in-house leadership experience

Compensation:

The salary range for this role will be $166,000.00 - $216,000.00 USD. In addition, this position will also receive an annual target bonus of 15%. Bonus pay at NinjaTrader is based on individual performance (50%) as well as company/team performance (50%).

Salary and bonus earnings are only two components of the total compensation package offered by NinjaTrader. NinjaTrader offers a 401K plan through ADP under which the company will match up to 3.5% of employee contributions. Annual paid time off allowance accrues at a rate of 23 days per year plus seven paid holidays.

Location:

This role is based in Chicago, IL. *There may be remote flexibility for exceptional candidates in the following states: California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Washington DC, Wisconsin.

Hybrid:

For Chicago-based employees, we follow a hybrid work schedule: In-office Tuesday through Thursday, with remote work on Mondays and Fridays. In addition to these weekly remote days, we offer:

- 20 additional flex remote days annually
- 5 Company Wide Office-Optional weeks tied to major holidays

Our Core Benefits Include:

- Generous PTO
- 7 Paid Holidays Annually + 5 Conditional Holidays Annually
- 1 Service Day Annually
- 401k with 3.5% Company Match
- Paid Parental Bonding Leave
- Health, Vision, Dental Coverage
- Life and Disability Insurance Covered 100% by NinjaTrader

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression, or veteran status. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.

## About NinjaTrader

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: NinjaTrader is an award-winning futures trading platform and brokerage that empowers active traders with advanced software, analytics, and brokerage services.
- **Entity Type**: Private (subsidiary of Payward, Inc. / Kraken, acquired March 2025)
- **Headquarters**: Chicago, Illinois, United States
- **Founded**: 2004 (company began operations in 2003 per its website)
- **Founders**: Not publicly available

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Financial Services – Futures Trading, Brokerage, Fintech
- **Target customers**: B2C (active retail futures traders) and B2B (third-party developers and institutions via its platform ecosystem)
- **Mission**: “Empower traders worldwide with award-winning technology and brokerage services” and “build products and services that empower active traders to easily analyze and react to data from the world's leading financial markets.”

## Products & Services
- **NinjaTrader Platform**: Award-winning trading software for futures, featuring advanced charting, market analytics, trade simulation, and trading system development. Available on desktop (PC/Mac), web, and mobile.
- **Brokerage Services** (via NinjaTrader Clearing, LLC): Futures brokerage with low commissions ($0.09 per contract), low intraday margins ($50), and no deposit minimum.
- **Add-on Ecosystem**: 1,000+ third-party add-ons and a C#-based development framework for building custom indicators, strategies, and tools.
- **Simulated Trading**: Free unlimited simulated trading for practice and strategy testing.
- **Education**: Free premium trading education tools and resources.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Acquired by Kraken in March 2025 for $1.5 billion (valuation at acquisition). Prior private equity round in 2020 led by Long Ridge Equity Partners.
- **Key Metric**: Annual revenue of $75 million (latest available); over 2 million users globally.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Long Ridge Equity Partners (lead investor in 2020), Kraken (acquirer), Payward, Inc. (parent company). Also acquired Tradovate in 2022 for $115 million.
- **Growth Signals**: 25.7% YoY headcount growth (353 employees, +104 YoY); active job postings up 114.3% YoY; operates in 28 countries; Great Place to Work Certified.

## Competitive Advantages
- #1 rated futures broker (self-reported) with award-winning software.
- Integrated platform + brokerage (one-stop shop for futures traders).
- Large, loyal user base (over 2 million) and strong community.
- Low-cost structure (low commissions, low margins) appealing to active traders.
- C# development framework enables a rich ecosystem of custom tools and third-party add-ons.
- Multi-device support (desktop, web, mobile) for seamless trading.

## Strategic Focus
- Mission to “become the #1 retail trading platform in the world.”
- Modernizing the futures industry through continuous product innovation.
- Expanding globally (already in 28 countries) and deepening integration with Kraken’s crypto ecosystem.
- Scaling engineering and product teams to build next-generation trading tools.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: “Dynamic culture focused on social connection, professional development, and employee recognition initiatives.” Great Place to Work Certified.
- **Benefits**: Health, vision, dental coverage; 401(k) with company match; 100% employer-paid life and disability insurance; generous PTO; paid holidays.
- **Remote/Hybrid**: Many roles are listed as “Chicago or Remote*” (e.g., Sr. Data Engineer, Staff Software Engineer). HQ in Chicago with a hybrid-friendly approach.
- **Engineering Culture**: Strong technical teams working on trading systems, data engineering, AI, and backend services. Tech stack includes C#, Scala, and modern cloud infrastructure. Internship program available.
- **Career Development**: Emphasis on internal career development and employee recognition.

## Sources
1. [ninjatrader.com](https://ninjatrader.com/careers/)
2. [job-boards.greenhouse.io](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/ninjatrader)
3. [ninjatrader.com](https://ninjatrader.com/careers/job-openings/)
4. [ninjatrader.com](https://ninjatrader.com/)
5. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/ninjatrader-group-llc)

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