Junior Software Engineer

Harrington Starr; Dubai; On-site; AED 350,000 - 550,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Top compensation

Profit sharing

Job summary

Harrington Starr in Dubai is seeking a Financial Engineer / Software Engineer – Trading to join its trading and research technology team. You will sit close to the trading function, building alpha and signal research systems and applying AI tooling to accelerate engineering and research.

The role focuses on production-ready software for trading workflows, market data handling, and understanding trade execution.

Qualifications

• 0–4 years' commercial software engineering or quantitative development experience
• Strong fundamental software engineering ability
• A genuine understanding of financial markets, trading and investment concepts
• Strong interest in quantitative/systematic trading
• Comfortable operating in fast-moving and high-pressure markets
• Strong problem-solving and analytical ability
• Language agnostic — engineering ability over a specific language
• Comfortable using modern AI development tools as part of daily workflow

Responsibilities

• Building and improving alpha and signal research systems
• Developing software and tooling used directly within the investment and trading process
• Collaborating with traders and researchers to understand the strategies supported
• Using AI tooling extensively to accelerate engineering and research
• Working with financial and market data to build production‑quality systems
• Developing an understanding of trade execution and market structure
• Solving problems where correctness, robustness and efficiency are critical
• Taking significant ownership in a fast-moving environment

Skills

Software engineering

Financial markets

AI tooling

Trading concepts

Problem solving

Tools

Python

Job description

Financial Engineer / Software Engineer – Trading

0–4 years' experience | Financial Markets | AI | Trading

We are working with a fast-growing investment management firm operating within the digital asset markets, looking to hire a Financial Engineer into its trading and research technology team.

This is not a traditional software engineering role where you'll simply work through tickets, nor is it an ML research position.

You'll sit close to the trading function, using modern engineering and AI tooling to build alpha and signal research systems, understand the strategies your technology supports, and develop an increasingly deep understanding of how those strategies are executed in live markets. This reflects the firm's own description of the role as sitting close to trading and building alpha/signal research systems rather than pure ML research.

What you'll be doing

• Building and improving alpha and signal research systems
• Developing software and tooling used directly within the investment and trading process
• Working closely with traders and researchers to understand the strategies you're supporting
• Using AI tooling extensively to accelerate engineering and research
• Working with financial and market data to build robust, production-quality systems
• Developing an understanding of trade execution and market structure
• Solving problems where correctness, robustness and efficiency are critical
• Taking significant ownership in a small, fast-moving environment

What we're looking for

• 0–4 years' commercial experience in software engineering, financial engineering, quantitative development or a closely related field
• Strong fundamental software engineering ability
• A genuine understanding of financial markets, trading and investment concepts
• Strong interest in quantitative/systematic trading
• Comfortable operating in fast-moving and high-pressure markets
• Strong problem-solving and analytical ability
• Language agnostic — we're interested in engineering ability rather than one specific programming language
• Comfortable using modern AI development tools as part of your day-to-day engineering workflow

Prior experience within a hedge fund, proprietary trading firm, investment manager, bank, crypto firm or fintech would be advantageous.

Working arrangement

However, this is a markets-facing position. You must be comfortable with working outside standard UK office hours when required, particularly where trading activity, market events or collaboration across international time zones requires it.

Why join?

You'll be joining a small investment business where engineering sits extremely close to the actual investment process. Rather than building technology several layers removed from its users, you'll be able to see how your work affects research, trading decisions and ultimately investment performance.

The role offers top-of-market compensation plus profit share.