Michael Esterman

Quant systems & market microstructure for growth-stage trading teams.

Summary

I build and guide real-time trading data & execution platforms with a market-microstructure lens—so researchers and traders can act with confidence.

The mandate is growth: align data, tooling, and governance so desks scale from exploratory work to institutional-grade operations without losing pace or clarity.

Current Focus

  • Unified market views across centralized and on-chain venues, keeping structure consistent from research to execution.
  • Real-time signals that surface liquidity shifts, flow narratives, and actionable market structure insight.
  • Data pipelines that stay orderly under pressure, with replay, audit, and quality controls built in.
  • Execution hooks that move ideas from research into live trading while preserving explainability.
  • Operating models that tie streaming infrastructure to trading objectives and measurable service levels.
  • Partnership with portfolio leadership to convert system design into risk awareness and growth mandates.

Operating Principles

  • Lead with clarity: deterministic systems, transparent assumptions, and the ability to retrace every decision.
  • Stand shoulder-to-shoulder with quantitative, trading, and product partners to own metrics together.
  • Engineer for resilience—controlled latency, graceful fallback paths, and confident transitions from research to production.
  • Communicate in plain language so cross-functional teams can move quickly without losing alignment.

Collaboration

I work best with prop and market-making teams that value clean foundations, explainable features, and pragmatic iteration. Open to compare notes, share architecture briefs, or explore leadership tracks where system design and market perspective meet.