Senior Solace Middleware Engineer in London

The UK ITS AS (ENET) team provides highly specialized middleware and application platform support to the Bank's dedicated, low-latency electronic trading infrastructure. This mission-critical environment supports real-time Forex (FX) and Fixed Income (FI) electronic trading systems, where sub-millisecond performance is paramount.

We are seeking an expert-level Senior Solace Middleware Engineer to spearhead the support, management, and long-term evolution of our enterprise Solace messaging infrastructure. In this role, you will act as the platform owner for the messaging bus that underpins our global FX and Fixed Income trading businesses. You will work directly with global development teams, network infrastructure specialists, and trading stakeholders to design resilient, ultra-low latency messaging architectures, onboard critical new applications, and maintain flawless operational stability during high-volume market hours.

Key Responsibilities

• Platform Ownership: Architect, administer, and optimize the enterprise Solace PubSub+ platform (both physical appliances and software brokers).
• Latency Tuning: Configure and performance-tune Solace brokers, message VPNs, queues, topic hierarchies, and client profiles to meet micro-second requirements.
• Resilience & Routing: Manage high-availability configurations (primary/backup broker pairs, replication) and implement Dynamic Message Routing (DMR) for inter-datacenter distribution.
• Governance: Define and enforce messaging standards, naming conventions, and best-practice governance frameworks.
• Integration Engineering: Partner with global development teams to integrate trading applications with Solace message streams, optimizing session properties and flow control.
• Pattern Design: Design topic hierarchies, multicast messaging standards, and subscription patterns optimized for market data distribution and trade execution flows (Direct vs. Guaranteed messaging).
• Application On-boarding: Own the end-to-end application onboarding process onto the ENET platform, defining connectivity, network, and security requirements.
• Specialized Monitoring: Deploy and maintain custom monitoring dashboards using ITRS Geneos and Corvil network analytics to track latency, throughput, and queue depths in real time.
• Connectivity Management: Manage network and application connectivity to external FX and FI trading venues, coordinating closely with network teams on multicast routing and firewall configurations.
• Data Pipelines: Architect data pipelines from Solace message streams to backend analytics databases for trade data persistence, flow analysis, and trade reconstruction.
• Production Support: Troubleshoot complex, high-pressure messaging bottlenecks and data loss incidents during active market hours.
• Automation: Eliminate manual overhead by scripting operational tasks using Python, Shell, and SQL.
• Rota Support: Participate in the team’s global on-call rotation and weekend change-management rota (approximately 1 in 3 weekends).

Requirements

• 10+ Years of Experience: A proven track record supporting high-performance technical platforms or core infrastructure within Capital Markets or Electronic Trading environments.
• Subject Matter Expertise in Solace (Critical): Deep, expert-level knowledge of the Solace PubSub+ ecosystem, including guaranteed/direct messaging patterns, VPN configuration, bridges, SEMP API, and DMR.
• Low-Latency Networking: Strong underlying knowledge of Linux/Unix administration focused on network performance tuning, specifically with multicast messaging protocols, packet captures (tcpdump, Wireshark), and diagnosing data loss at the OS level.
• Trading Workflow Domain Knowledge: Clear understanding of pre-trade workflows in FX/FI markets, including pricing engines, Request for Quote (RFQ), order management, and common serialization formats (FIX, JSON, Protobuf).
• Monitoring Tooling: Practical experience configuring enterprise monitoring setups inside ITRS Geneos and leveraging Corvil network analytics.
• Automation Scripting: Proficiency in Python and Shell scripting, alongside solid SQL database skills for data persistence tracking.
• Certifications: Solace Certified Administrator or Solace Certified Developer credentials.
• Modern Data Stack: Familiarity with containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) for Solace deployments or exposure to streaming analytics platforms like Kafka or Flink.
• Process Frameworks: Familiarity with ITIL change-management frameworks.

Work Arrangements & Personal Qualities

• Location: Based out of our central London office, with flexible hybrid-working options.
• Hours: Professional day hours, with flexibility required for out-of-hours on-call rotations and occasional international travel.
• Who You Are: You are a highly autonomous engineer who remains calm and analytical under pressure. You bring an imaginative approach to complex routing challenges and possess the meticulous attention to detail required to protect a live trading floor.