William Steinberg

William Steinberg has always been drawn to environments that challenge the mind and reward curiosity. Born into a Marine Corps family, with a father who served nearly thirty-five years as a Marine Corps pilot, he grew up accustomed to frequent relocations and constant change. That upbringing instilled adaptability at an early age and exposed him to a wide range of cultures, perspectives, and ways of thinking. Over time, those experiences nurtured a fascination with systems, mechanics, and problem-solving that would later shape his professional path.

From childhood onward, William balanced technical curiosity with creative and athletic interests. He learned to play the guitar and spent many hours immersed in music, while also committing himself to sports, including playing basketball throughout high school. These early interests helped him develop discipline, teamwork, and persistence, traits that would later define his approach to engineering and leadership. Long before he chose engineering as a career, he was already developing the habits of focus and experimentation that support complex work.

William pursued formal engineering training by earning a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Old Dominion University. During his undergraduate years, he completed a six-month internship at NASA’s Langley Research Center, where he worked on the HALOE project, which was used on space shuttle missions to collect solar and atmospheric data. That experience provided hands-on exposure to rigorous engineering standards and reinforced the importance of accuracy and reliability. He later earned a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from California State University, Northridge, where his academic excellence led to membership in the Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society.

By the time William Steinberg completed his graduate studies, he had accumulated practical experience across digital hardware, embedded systems, and signal processing. These early skills enabled him to transition seamlessly into demanding engineering roles and laid the groundwork for a career spanning aerospace, defense, and finance. His ability to understand systems from the hardware level up became a defining strength throughout his professional journey.

William began his professional career at McDonnell Douglas in California, contributing to the development of new programs for the MD-80, MD-11, and C-17 aircraft. His responsibilities included developing embedded firmware, operating system software, and tools used in airborne data acquisition systems. The work required meticulous coding, extensive testing, and close interaction with low-level hardware. He later joined Sonatech in Santa Barbara, an underwater acoustics engineering firm, where he designed embedded software and data acquisition controllers for underwater tracking systems used in both military and commercial settings.

In January 1994, William relocated to New York City to join Morgan Stanley’s Institutional Technology Division. This transition marked the beginning of a long and influential career in financial technology. He worked on C++ infrastructure, mortgage-backed securities trading systems, equity cash trading tools, and real-time market data platforms. Many of the utilities he delivered were deployed across global trading desks, directly supporting daily operations and large-scale trading activity.

In 2008, William joined Goldman Sachs, where he spent more than fourteen years in increasingly senior roles. As Vice President, William Steinberg supported the Equities Electronic Market Making and Equities Quantitative Trading teams, contributing to market-making systems, quantitative tools, and workflow platforms used across US exchanges. His work included futures trading systems, desk-level risk management solutions, ETF trading support, and exchange connectivity. Earlier, he led efforts within the Prime Brokerage Risk group, overseeing margin calculation and liquidity assessment systems.

William returned to Morgan Stanley in 2023 as an Executive Director within Institutional Securities Technology. In this role, he leads a global C++ development team responsible for implementing trading risk controls and safeguarding the integrity of core trading platforms. His leadership blends deep technical understanding with a strong appreciation for operational resilience and risk management.

Across his career, William has developed expertise in C++, Python, Perl, Lisp, and Bash, along with broad experience across operating systems, networking environments, and hardware platforms. Outside of work, he remains committed to community involvement, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, and supporting science mentorship programs. He continues to enjoy music, basketball, water sports, travel, and pursuing new interests that keep his curiosity active.