Head of Risk Platform Engineering

CoinDesk is the most trusted media events indices and data company for the global crypto economy. Since 2013, CoinDesk Media has led the story of the future of money and investing, illuminating the transformation in society and culture that comes with it. Our award‑winning team of journalists delivers news and unparalleled insights that bring transparency, comprehension, and context. CoinDesk Events gathers the global crypto blockchain and Web3 communities at annual events such as Consensus – the world’s largest and longest‑running crypto festival. CoinDesk Indices offers expertise in digital asset indices, data, and research to educate and empower investors.

In November 2023, CoinDesk was acquired by the Bullish group, owner of Bullish, a regulated digital assets exchange. CoinDesk operates as an independent subsidiary with an editorial committee to protect journalistic independence.

Reports to: Vice President Engineering

Key Responsibilities:

• Design, build and maintain robust, high‑performance microservices and stream processing pipelines to deliver timely data supporting Risk Management and Clearing functions.
• Develop a deep understanding of the data models and end‑to‑end data workflows across Risk Management and Clearing functions.
• Build and architect infrastructure for optimal extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) of external market data feeds.
• Prioritise non‑functional requirements, including but not limited to HA/DR, high‑throughput and data freshness.
• Prioritise automated testing and maintain high standards for code quality and SDLC best practices.
• Contribute to the evolution of the platform’s target‑state architecture.
• Be an opinionated self‑starter who takes a strong sense of ownership and excels at distilling complex requirements.
• Stay current with industry trends to drive continuous improvement in the platform.
• Work within a global team (HK SG UK) coordinating closely with Product Managers, Quants and other Engineering teams.

Qualifications:

• 10 years of professional experience in software development.
• Applicable financial domain knowledge, particularly with options, futures and market data.
• Experience providing technical oversight for financial risk management related to options and futures.
• Expertise in Java and experience building mission‑critical, high‑throughput systems.
• Demonstrated experience with stream processing pipelines (e.g., Kafka, Flink) and microservices architecture.
• Hands‑on experience with databases (e.g., SQL, No‑SQL such as Redis, Postgres, MongoDB).
• Well versed in designing data structures, event schemas and database schemas.
• Strong SQL skills.
• Strong analytical skills.
• Solid and opinionated knowledge of testing methodologies, coding principles and coding standards.
• Well versed with standard SDLC practices and tooling around build, test and deploy.
• Hands‑on with a strong sense of ownership.
• Ability to operate and thrive in a dynamic startup environment.
• Passionate about knowledge sharing and mentoring.
• Eligibility to work in the United Kingdom.

Bonus Experience:

• Familiarity with cloud technologies (e.g., AWS, GCP), modern DevOps tooling (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker) and workflow orchestration (e.g., Airflow, DBT).
• Familiarity with big data management and data lake ecosystems (e.g., Databricks, Snowflake, BigQuery).
• Experience with BI technologies for data visualisation (Tableau, Superset) or delivering simple web‑based UIs (React).

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY: In an effort to attract, retain, develop and promote the most qualified individuals, CoinDesk is committed to treating all applicants and employees in a nondiscriminatory manner with respect to the terms and conditions of employment without regard to race, color, religion or belief, sex, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status/service, physical or mental disability or any other classification protected by applicable law. This mandate governs all aspects of employment including recruitment, selection, promotion, training, education, social and recreation programs, compensation, discipline, termination and access to benefits.

ACCOMMODATION: CoinDesk is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation because of a disability for any part of the application process, please send an e‑mail to and let us know the nature of your request.

Employment Type: Full‑Time

Experience: years

Vacancy: 1