Site Reliability Engineer in London

Optiver’s Production Engineering teams manage our live trading environment, which is active across 50+ global exchanges and hundreds of thousands of interconnected financial products. Our world-class infrastructure is a combination of vastly distributed systems, high-performance computing and low-latency trading algorithms, as well as high-throughput dataflows and data analysis. To keep pace with the ever-changing markets, Optiver must always react with speed, and therefore takes an in-house approach to building, analysing, managing and improving our custom infrastructure. Taking this autonomy a step further, Optiver’s huge volumes of data are stored at our own data centre rather than in the cloud. Our technological independence enables us to evolve our systems on a daily basis, operating with tight feedback loops and quick development cycles. The challenge is balancing innovation with reliability and performance in such a complex, time-pressured environment – and that’s exactly where you come in.

As a Production Engineer, you’ll be responsible for deploying, maintaining, monitoring and improving the reliability, scalability and performance of our in-house built trading systems. At Optiver, reliability means prevention and swift resolution across our software, to guarantee optimum functioning even in the most extreme market conditions. Having a decisive nature, engineering mindset and preference for simple solutions are essential to keeping our systems reliable. The Production Engineer role is crucial for Optiver’s trading activities. Your scope will cover market access, monitoring and compliance, strategy evaluation and management, performance tuning and trading automation. Sitting in the middle of our buzzing trading floor, you will have constant face‑to‑face interaction with end‑users (Traders and Researchers as well as fellow Engineers). This is an engineering role, not a support role, so you’ll set the standards for our production environment. As part of our core business, you will make a real, direct impact on our ability to trade and trading results. No two days are the same in our high‑stakes, flat‑hierarchy environment.

Who you are

You are a pragmatic, logical thinker. With a facilitating and enabling attitude, you always strive to find clean and simple solutions. You are naturally curious about hardware and software, and how these interact. You want to work on a broad range of projects and use various tools to best solve any problem at hand. With a hands‑on approach, you can look at code, figure out how it works and explore how to make it better. You are able to clearly explain your thoughts through written and verbal communication, ask the right questions, and are not afraid to challenge or defend a strategy. You seek out opportunities to leave your comfort zone and enjoy frequent change.

In terms of skillset, we’re looking for:

• Experience managing day-to-day operations of software and hardware infrastructure
• Strong affinity with Unix/Linux systems
• The ability to automate tasks using Python
• Strong design, debugging, and problem solving skills
• Experience with relational databases (e.g. we use PostgreSQL but welcome experience with any other database)
• An understanding of networking fundamentals and protocols.

No prior trading or financial experience is needed – our onboarding program will kick‑start your career at Optiver and support you in gaining all the relevant knowledge about our business.

At Optiver, our mission is to constantly improve the market by injecting liquidity, providing accurate pricing, increasing transparency and acting as a stabilizing force no matter the market conditions. With a focus on continuous improvement, we participate in the safeguarding of healthy and efficient markets for everyone who participates. As one of the largest market making institutions, we are a trusted partner of 70+ exchanges across the globe.

What you’ll get

You’ll join a culture of collaboration and excellence, where you’ll be surrounded by curious thinkers and creative problem solvers. Motivated by a passion for continuous improvement, you’ll thrive in a supportive, high‑performing environment alongside talented colleagues, working collectively to tackle the toughest problems in the financial markets. In addition, you’ll receive:

• A performance‑based bonus structure unmatched anywhere in the industry. We combine our profits across desks, teams and offices into a global profit pool
• The opportunity to work alongside best‑in‑class professionals from over 40 different countries
• 25 paid vacation days and fully paid first‑class commuting expenses
• Training opportunities and discounts on health insurance
• Extensive office perks, including breakfast and lunch, world‑class barista coffee, sports and leisure activities, Friday afternoon drinks, and weekly in‑house chair massages
• Competitive relocation packages and visa sponsorship where necessary for expats

How to apply

Are you interested in furthering your career on one of the most dynamic and exciting trading floors in Europe? Apply directly via the form below for the position of Production Engineer. If you have any questions feel free to contact our Recruiter team via our recruitment inquiry form. Please note: We cannot accept applications via email for data protection reasons. We do not require any assistance from third‑parties including agencies in the recruitment of this role.