Apprentice: Level 4 Software Engineer, RFQ-HUB

Company Description

MarketAxess is on a journey to digitally transform one of the world’s largest financial markets, enabling the shift from analog, phone-based trading to a fully electronic marketplace. Our platform makes trading fixed-income more accessible, ultimately improving transparency, efficiency, and competition in the marketplace.

The Role

MarketAxess is hiring for a UK-based Software Engineering Apprentice to join the team supporting and developing our RFQ-hub platform. This is an entry-level opportunity designed for someone who thrives in a fast-moving environment, enjoys problem-solving, and wants to build a career in software engineering. You’ll learn from experienced engineers while contributing to real production services, with a structured training program and protected time for off-the-job learning. The training program is expected to run for approximately 12 -18 months, with regular learning activities throughout.

How You'll Help Take Us There

• Production Support & Operational Learning
  • Support production systems during core hours alongside experienced engineers, learning how incidents are diagnosed and resolved.
  • Learn to investigate issues using logs, metrics, SQL queries, and application-level debugging (with mentoring and runbooks).
  • Help answer business and client queries by extracting and interpreting systems and trading data.
  • Build confidence communicating clearly during incidents and escalations, working with relationship managers, clients, and internal stakeholders.
  • Contribute to post-incident reviews and follow-up actions (fixes, automation, documentation) to improve reliability and supportability.
• Operations-Driven Software Development
  • Help deliver small, well-scoped changes that improve platform stability, operability, and user experience.
  • Write clean, maintainable, and testable code in C#, F# and TypeScript, supported by code reviews and pair programming.
  • Work closely with product, engineering, and integration teams to understand requirements, test changes, and learn how reliable services are delivered in production.
• Integration & Connectivity (Exposure)
  • Learn how we onboard and support connectivity with external parties (e.g., FIX connections), following documented processes and escalating appropriately.
  • Support client onboarding and certification activities, helping improve documentation and automation to make integrations smoother over time.

What We’re Looking for

• Candidates must have completed A-level or equivalent qualification. Alternatively, relevant prior experience will also be considered.
• Having GCSEs in Mathematics, Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent subjects is desirable.
• Eligible to work in the UK and able to commit to an apprenticeship program with protected off-the-job learning time.
• Demonstrable interest in software development (e.g., coursework, personal projects, bootcamp, career change portfolio) with a desire to specialize in C#/.NET and TypeScript.
• Comfortable with data and queries (basic-to-intermediate SQL is a plus) and keen to learn production diagnostics.
• A calm, methodical approach to troubleshooting and a willingness to follow runbooks, ask good questions, and elevate appropriately.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to explain what you’re doing and what you’ve tried to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Willingness to use modern developer tooling (e.g., GitHub Copilot or similar) responsibly to accelerate learning and delivery.

What You Can Expect from Us

• Central Location: based at our city offices near St Paul’s.
• Free Food: We provide lunch each day of the week when the employee attends the office as well as breakfast cereals, office snacks and drinks from our free vending machines.
• Paid Time Off: 25 days annual leave entitlement plus 2 charity days.
• Reward for your service: We offer a two-week bonus holiday after completing each 5 years of service.
• Core benefits: Besides competitive standard benefits package we offer private medical (PMI) for family, Cash Plan, health screenings, dental cover, 6X life assurance, critical illness cover, income protection, pension, car leasing (Tusker electronic cars), reimbursement for wellness stipend, interest free season ticket loan and a “Share Incentive” plan.
• Tuition Assistance and Professional Training: Benefit from on-demand learning, boot camps, and opportunities to attend conferences.
• Apprenticeship Support: Protected learning time for your apprenticeship training, plus support from your line manager and training provider throughout the program.

Collaboration and innovation are integral to our success – it's how we got to where we are and how we’ll maintain and grow our competitive advantage. We believe this best happens in an office environment. Employees work in the office 3 days a week.