Software Engineer: Core Trading

Hello, we’re IG Group. We are an FTSE250 FinTech company who run mobile, web and desktop platforms that help our clients trade stocks & shares, leveraged products, Futures & Options and Crypto. Over 340,000 people already use our platforms. We’re global with offices in 18 countries and products in 16 regions. We’re ambitious, hungry to move faster, ship better products, and grow our user base. We believe in high autonomy and want people who are looking to do things differently to create better experiences for our customers. We work in cross‑functional teams and are laser‑focused on increasing the number of active clients we serve to drive sustainable growth.

You’ll be working in IG’s Core Trading team, building the low‑latency, high‑throughput systems at the heart of our business. We deliver critical trading functionality—from order booking and execution to real‑time risk management and valuation.

Using cutting‑edge software engineering techniques and technology, you’ll help provide a world‑class trading experience for IG’s clients. As an Engineer, you’ll utilise strong core Java skills to build backend trading systems, whilst developing the logic and mechanisms that form the basis of IG’s financial products. You’ll communicate with stakeholders and employ keen problem‑solving skills to deliver products at pace. With strong attention to detail and focus on quality you will ensure great client outcomes. Your knowledge of performance testing and optimisation will ensure systems are always low latency and high throughput and enable performance improvements to drive new business lines.

What you’ll do:

• Collaborate within a dynamic engineering team to design, develop and maintain IG’s core trading systems
• Deliver new trading products and features across all of IG’s business lines, including OTC trading, Share Dealing and high‑frequency institutional trading
• Develop low‑latency, high‑throughput distributed systems built on an asynchronous event‑driven architecture
• Ensure all systems and features are optimised, robust and resilient to provide performant 24/7 trading
• Drive innovation and continuous improvement to ensure a best‑in‑class trading offering
• Leverage modern engineering practices and tooling such as pair programming, TDD, BDD and CI/CD pipelines to rapidly deliver business value

What you’ll need for this role:

• Java: Very strong core Java development skills (4+ years of experience in Java development)
• Problem‑solving: Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills
• Design / Architecture: Software / systems / API design skills
• Engineering Best Practices: Automation testing (unit, acceptance, performance), TDD, BDD, Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) and DevOps experience
• Distributed Systems Performance: Experience with performance testing / optimisation of distributed systems
• Finance Domain Experience: Experience engineering financial systems software (ideally trading systems)
• Messaging: Experience with messaging technologies such as AMQ / Kafka

We try to take a thoughtful approach to our ways of working as a company. We follow a hybrid working model with 3 days in the office – which we think balances the need to collaborate effectively and connect with each other. When it comes to how we deliver, there are five things we want everyone to do to drive high performance, better learning and career satisfaction:

• Lead and Inspire: Drives trust, alignment, and enthusiasm
• Think Big: Focus on the problems that most impact commercial outcomes
• Champion the client: Understand and prioritise client’s needs
• Deliver at pace: Push for fast, sustainable growth
• Raise the bar: Take ownership, be accountable and share feedback

We believe that diversity is vital to success, it fuels creativity, drives innovation and sets us up for global success. We’re committed to building teams with a variety of perspectives and skills to help us realise our vision and strategy, that’s why we encourage applications from people with diverse backgrounds and experiences.

Your growth fuels our success! Thrive with tailored development programs, mentoring opportunities with leaders, and clear career progression. Expand your network through committees, sports and social clubs. Enjoy extra time off for volunteering and community work. Competitive salary. Flexible Benefits Package on top of your salary (12%). Private medical cover for you and your family. Life insurance. Contribution to gym memberships. 25 days holiday, with 1 additional day off to celebrate your birthday and 2 additional days off a year for voluntary work (28 in total). Option to buy or sell holiday days. Unlimited access to the LinkedIn Learning Platform. A comprehensive global and local onboarding process. Employee‑led LGBTQ+, Women’s, Black and Parents & Carers networks with an annual budget for organising events & projects that foster an open, diverse and inclusive culture. Option to participate and create ESG initiatives based on IG Brighter Future Fund. Enhanced primary (maternity), secondary (paternity), and shared parental pay and leave, as well as a range of support and benefits for parents.

What that means for the people who work here is real: genuinely complex problems to solve, the technology and resources to tackle them properly, and the kind of scope that’s rare in established businesses. The bar is high – bring a curious and forward‑thinking mindset and we’ll give you the platform to define what comes next. Join us at IG – the future gets built here.