At a Glance
- Tasks: Join a cutting-edge team to revolutionise trading technology with AI-driven solutions.
- Company: Goldman Sachs, a leading global investment banking firm with a commitment to innovation.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, generous vacation, health support, and professional development opportunities.
- Other info: Dynamic work environment with a focus on diversity, inclusion, and career growth.
- Why this job: Make a real impact in finance by building the future of trading technology.
- Qualifications: 8+ years in software development, strong Java skills, and experience with AI tools.
The predicted salary is between 100000 - 130000 £ per year.
The Opportunity
Goldman Sachs has embarked on one of its most ambitious engineering programs: the Consolidated Trade Ledger (CTL), a ground‑up reimagining of the front-to-back architecture that underpins every trade the firm executes. CTL is a flagship initiative jointly sponsored by Global Markets and Engineering leadership, and it sits at the very heart of the firm's core technology strategy. This new, cloud-native platform will deliver the capacity, extensibility, scalability, and innovation capabilities to power the next two decades of growth for Global Markets, while simultaneously driving significant operational efficiencies. The program follows an engineering-principles-first approach and represents a rare chance to define the foundational systems of a world‑leading financial institution from the ground up.
The Role
You will work with a set of core CTL business services and adapt them for Equities Trading, creating capabilities that can be leveraged across Global Markets front, middle, and back office functions. This includes extending CTL's flexible data model to integrate seamlessly with existing production idioms, while meeting the diverse and often complex business requirements of a global 24x7 trading operation, while balancing stringent non‑functional demands for availability, latency, and resilience. Critically, you will lean heavily into AI‑driven development. Using Goldman Sachs' AI tooling and agentic coding assistants, you will govern multiple AI agents, rapidly comprehend large legacy codebases, generate and assess production‑quality code, and accelerate every phase of the software development lifecycle.
Your Impact
- Drive a strategic transformation: Work alongside domain experts to understand existing production processes, challenge long‑held assumptions that may no longer hold in a cloud‑centric, AI‑driven world, and define and deliver the requirements for CTL integration.
- Multiply your output with AI: Orchestrate AI coding agents (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Devin, Gemini Code Assist) across all stages of the SDLC while maintaining mastery, quality, and production fitness over all AI‑generated work product.
- Deliver outsized business value: Position Goldman Sachs' Equities business to handle orders‑of‑magnitude higher volumes at lower operational costs, directly contributing to the firm's competitive and commercial edge.
- Build for the future: Design and implement high‑availability, multi‑region, event‑driven services on a modern cloud‑native platform, setting the architectural standard for years to come.
What You Will Do
- Design, build, and operate high‑availability, multi‑region, cloud‑native services with security and comprehensive observability (metrics, distributed tracing, structured logging) built in at every layer.
- Develop event‑driven architectures, multi‑stage processing pipelines, and optimized data paths for high‑throughput trade lifecycle management.
- Partner with engineers, domain experts, and global stakeholders to understand, model, and digitize the firm's business processes, challenging entrenched practices and driving modernization across teams.
- Manage the full lifecycle of software components, from requirements analysis through design, development, testing, and release, in line with robust SDLC and Agile best practices.
- Innovate creative solutions to complex business and technical problems, building reusable capabilities that can be leveraged across Global Markets front, middle, and back office functions.
- Multiply your impact with a modern, AI‑centric toolchain, orchestrating AI coding agents across all stages of the SDLC to rapidly comprehend large codebases, generate production‑quality code, and accelerate delivery.
Required Qualifications
- 8+ years of professional software development experience in Java (Java 17+ preferred), with strong command of concurrency, collections, and modern language features.
- Demonstrated experience with AI assisted engineering tools (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot Agent Mode, Devin, Gemini Code Assist), including the ability to govern AI agents, critically assess their output, and maintain quality over AI‑generated work product.
- Experience building event‑driven and distributed systems, including familiarity with messaging platforms (e.g., Apache Kafka), delivery guarantees, and resilience strategies.
- Strong SDLC practices: version control, CI/CD pipelines, automated build/test/deploy workflows, and code quality tooling.
- Solid testing discipline: unit, integration, and acceptance testing with modern frameworks.
- Ability to rapidly navigate, understand, and debug large and unfamiliar codebases— with and without AI assistance.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills across technical and non‑technical audiences in geographically distributed teams.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with a meaningful subset of the following is highly valued: Frameworks & Architecture: Spring Boot, gRPC / Protocol Buffers, integration/orchestration frameworks (e.g., Apache Camel, Spring Integration), and pipeline/adapter design patterns (retry, dead‑letter queues, error isolation).
- Cloud & Infrastructure: Cloud platforms (GCP, AWS), container orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker), and JVM tuning for containerized workloads.
- Observability & Operations: Application instrumentation (metrics, distributed tracing, structured logging) and production support in high‑availability environments.
- Data & Performance: Data modeling, SQL/NoSQL databases, caching strategies, and performance optimization in latency‑sensitive systems.
- Security: Enterprise security patterns; authentication protocols, mutual TLS, secrets management, and certificate rotation.
- Domain Knowledge: Equities, post‑trade, or financial services experience; trade lifecycle concepts, asset servicing, position management, reconciliation, and multi‑system migration environments.
- Other: Asynchronous / non‑blocking I/O frameworks (e.g., Vert.x, Netty), multi‑region / BCP architectures, and open‑source contribution experience.
Global Banking & Markets - Software Engineer - Vice President - London employer: Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
Goldman Sachs is an exceptional employer, offering a dynamic work environment in London that fosters innovation and collaboration. With a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, employees benefit from extensive professional development opportunities, competitive vacation policies, and comprehensive wellness programs. The company's focus on cutting-edge technology and AI-driven solutions provides a unique chance for software engineers to make a significant impact in the financial sector while enjoying a supportive and growth-oriented culture.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Global Banking & Markets - Software Engineer - Vice President - London
✨Tip Number 1
Network like a pro! Reach out to your connections in the industry, attend meetups, and engage with professionals on LinkedIn. The more people you know, the better your chances of landing that dream job.
✨Tip Number 2
Prepare for interviews by practising common questions and showcasing your technical skills. Use mock interviews to get comfortable with the format and receive feedback. Remember, confidence is key!
✨Tip Number 3
Showcase your projects! Whether it's GitHub repositories or personal projects, having tangible examples of your work can set you apart. Make sure to highlight how you've used AI tools in your development process.
✨Tip Number 4
Apply through our website! It’s the best way to ensure your application gets noticed. Plus, it shows you're genuinely interested in joining our team at Goldman Sachs.
We think you need these skills to ace Global Banking & Markets - Software Engineer - Vice President - London
Some tips for your application 🫡
Tailor Your CV:Make sure your CV is tailored to the role. Highlight your experience with Java, AI tools, and cloud-native services. We want to see how your skills align with what we're looking for!
Craft a Compelling Cover Letter:Your cover letter is your chance to shine! Share your passion for software engineering and how you can contribute to our ambitious projects. Let us know why you're excited about joining Goldman Sachs.
Showcase Your Projects:Include any relevant projects or experiences that demonstrate your expertise in event-driven architectures and high-availability systems. We love seeing real-world applications of your skills!
Apply Through Our Website:Don't forget to apply through our website! It’s the best way for us to receive your application and ensure it gets the attention it deserves. We can't wait to hear from you!
How to prepare for a job interview at Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
✨Know Your Tech Inside Out
Make sure you’re well-versed in the technologies mentioned in the job description, especially Java and AI-assisted engineering tools. Brush up on your knowledge of concurrency, collections, and modern language features, as these will likely come up during technical discussions.
✨Showcase Your Problem-Solving Skills
Prepare to discuss specific examples where you've tackled complex business or technical problems. Think about how you’ve innovated solutions in previous roles, particularly in high-availability environments or with event-driven architectures.
✨Understand the Business Context
Familiarise yourself with Goldman Sachs' Global Banking & Markets division and the significance of the Consolidated Trade Ledger initiative. Being able to articulate how your role as a Software Engineer fits into the broader business strategy will impress your interviewers.
✨Practice Collaboration Scenarios
Since this role involves working with diverse teams, be ready to discuss how you’ve successfully collaborated with both technical and non-technical stakeholders. Prepare examples that highlight your communication skills and ability to drive modernization across teams.