Who We Are
Optiver is a global market maker founded in Amsterdam with offices in London, Chicago, Austin, New York, Sydney, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei and Mumbai. Established in 1986, we are a leading liquidity provider with around 2,000 employees worldwide, committed to improving markets through competitive pricing, execution and risk management. We provide liquidity to financial markets on multiple exchanges using our own capital and trade a wide range of products including listed derivatives, cash equities, ETFs, bonds and foreign currencies.
What You'll Do
We are looking for experienced software engineers to join the Critical Engineering APAC team in Sydney – the platform group that builds and operates the systems that power Optiver's trading stack. Every day our platform processes massive volumes of data, prices thousands of financial instruments and makes millions of trading decisions safely, deterministically and in real‐time. The systems you will own sit beneath that platform, spanning real‐time risk controls, reference data, trade‐lifecycle infrastructure and trading‐integrity systems.
You will work hand‐on in C++ on globally distributed services, partner closely with representatives from all domains across the firm, and own meaningful slices end‐to‐end—from architectural choices through delivery to production support. Success in this role means measurably improving the resilience, capability or velocity of the platforms Optiver's traders rely on every day.
Responsibilities
- Design, build and operate components of the APAC platform, taking ownership of meaningful cross‐team projects.
- Write production‐grade C++ for real‐time, low‐latency, high‐throughput services that enable trading at scale.
- Set technical direction within your area of ownership and make architectural decisions that hold up under production load.
- Partner with representatives from all domains to translate business problems into pragmatic technical solutions.
- Manage deployments to reduce risk, and provide production support where required.
- Maintain quality across the team's systems through code review, automated testing and strong observability.
- Drive continuous improvement, replacing legacy or manual processes with better engineered systems.
- Mentor and act as a role model for less experienced engineers, raising the engineering bar across the team.
Who You Are
- Strong C++ programming ability – productive in production C++ from day one.
- Excellent computer‐science fundamentals: operating systems, data structures, algorithms and networking.
- Practical Linux/Unix proficiency.
- Familiarity with at least one scripting language (e.g. Python).
- 3+ years building and operating production software systems. The level at which a candidate is hired flexes with demonstrated quality of engineering, rather than years alone.
- Experience working through the full software development lifecycle: requirements, design, implementation, testing, deployment and ongoing operation.
- A track record of solving technically challenging problems and shipping them to real users.
Additional Experience We Value
- Working knowledge of distributed systems patterns, observability tooling and CI/CD pipelines.
- Experience building real‐time, low‐latency or high‐throughput systems.
- Familiarity with relational databases or modern data stacks.
- A solid understanding of the trade lifecycle across a range of financial instruments.
- A track record of architectural ownership and influence over technical direction.
- Experience with DevOps and operational excellence – incident response, SLOs and capacity planning.
What You'll Get
You will join a culture of collaboration and excellence, surrounded by curious thinkers and creative problem solvers. Driven by a passion for continuous improvement, you'll thrive in a supportive, high‐performing environment alongside talented colleagues, working collectively to tackle some of the most complex problems in the financial markets.
You will have access to a range of Optiver perks, including:
- A performance‐based bonus structure unmatched anywhere in the industry.
- The chance to work alongside diverse and intelligent peers in a rewarding environment.
- Training, mentorship and personal development opportunities.
- Daily breakfast, lunch and an in‐house barista.
- Gym membership plus weekly in‐house chair massages.
- Regular social events, including a company trip every two years.
- Guided relocation, a competitive relocation package and visa sponsorship where necessary.
Diversity Statement
Optiver is committed to diversity and inclusion. We encourage applications from candidates of any and all backgrounds, and we welcome requests for reasonable adjustments during the process to ensure that you can best demonstrate your abilities.
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