Full Stack Engineer – Java – AI - Trading in Shrewsbury

Duration: 10 months contract

Pay: PAYE Rate £632.91 / Umbrella Rate £750

Location: 4 days onsite – London

Full‑Stack Engineer with strong Java skills to design and build features for FX Trading applications, including AI‑driven capabilities that enhance decisioning, automation, and user experience.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or related discipline; or equivalent work experience.
• 5–9 years of professional software development experience; experience in financial services—particularly FX Trading applications—is highly desirable.
• Excellent communication skills and proven ability to work within agile, cross‑functional teams.

Core Technical Skills

• Backend: Strong Java development, Spring/Spring Boot, multi‑threaded and mission‑critical services, RESTful APIs, microservices, messaging (Kafka/MQ), and concurrency patterns.
• Frontend: Angular; exposure to React is a plus. Proficiency in TypeScript and modular UI design is beneficial.
• Data: Experience with relational databases (Oracle/SQLServer), SQL proficiency, schema design, query optimization; familiarity with caching (Redis/Hazelcast) and API contract testing.
• Shift‑left quality mindset and risk‑based test planning.
• Observability & reliability: Strong debugging/troubleshooting habits using logs and traces; awareness of metrics, distributed tracing, and resiliency patterns.

AI

• Experience integrating AI capabilities and workflows into existing production systems is desired.
• Familiarity with Machine learning concepts (model versioning, evaluation, monitoring, drift detection, CI/CD for models, feature stores) and collaboration with data science/ML engineering.
• Practical exposure to AI frameworks/platforms.
• Understanding of responsible AI practices.
• Experience effectively using AI tools to accelerate development (ClaudeCode, CodeX, Windsurf, Copilot).

Expected Scope of Role

• Consult with Product, Sales, Trading, and Operations to design and develop backend and frontend features for FX Trading applications, including AI‑augmented workflows (e.g., smart recommendations, event classification, intelligent automation).
• Program well‑designed, testable, efficient code across the stack (Java/Spring Boot, Angular/TypeScript).
• Analyze, design, and develop robust test suites and test‑automation (unit, integration, contract, API/UI, performance).
• For AI components, define evaluation metrics and create automated checks for model output quality and drift.
• Reduce technical debt in backend services and shared libraries; improve modularity, observability, and operability.
• Participate in code reviews; uphold secure coding practices and performance optimization for low‑latency, high‑throughput use cases.
• Integrate software components into a cohesive, production‑ready system; design clear API contracts and backward‑compatible changes.
• Troubleshoot, debug, and upgrade existing systems; instrument features for metrics, logs, and traces to enable rapid issue isolation.
• Participate in deployment processes following all change controls; champion “production‑ready commits” via CI/CD gates, feature flags, and safe rollout/rollback strategies.
• Provide recommendations for continuous improvement in architecture, developer experience, testing strategy, and release practices.
• Collaborate with engineers and data scientists to elevate technology standards, ensure consistent best practices, and align AI features to measurable user and business outcomes.