Senior Software Engineer

Pearson Carter; City of Melbourne; On-site; AUD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Pearson Carter is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to design and build cloud-native, high-performance systems for research, trading and portfolio management. You will own backend architecture, craft APIs and data pipelines, and collaborate closely with PMs, traders and researchers to deliver real-time, scalable solutions.

The role emphasizes ownership, product thinking, and building systems from scratch in a fast-paced environment across AWS and modern web tech stacks.

Qualifications

• Must have strong Python engineering experience and backend focus.
• Experience building products from inception through production.
• Demonstrable ownership of systems and architecture decisions.
• Strong backend engineering and distributed systems experience.
• Cloud experience (AWS preferred).
• Stable career history with long-term commitment and good communication.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop software supporting research, trading and portfolio management.
• Build cloud-native applications and distributed systems on AWS.
• Design APIs and data pipelines processing large volumes of market data.
• Build real-time systems supporting investment workflows.
• Improve platform scalability, performance and security.
• Work directly with PMs, traders and quantitative researchers.
• Drive engineering standards and best practices.
• Contribute to long-term architecture decisions.

Skills

Strong Python

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

Cloud experience

Communication skills

Tools

Django

PostgreSQL

React

TypeScript

Docker

GitHub

CI/CD

AWS

Job description

THE ROLE

Senior Software Engineer

Responsibilities

• Design and develop software supporting research, trading and portfolio management.
• Build cloud-native applications and distributed systems on AWS.
• Design APIs and data pipelines processing large volumes of market data.
• Build real-time systems supporting investment workflows.
• Improve platform scalability, performance and security.
• Work directly with PMs, traders and quantitative researchers.
• Drive engineering standards and best practices.
• Contribute to long-term architecture decisions.

Focus Areas

This is heavily focused on:

• Greenfield engineering
• Ownership
• Product thinking
• Building systems from scratch

Technology Stack

Core:

• Python
• Django
• PostgreSQL
• AWS
• React
• TypeScript
• Docker
• GitHub
• CI/CD

Nice to have:

• Event-driven systems
• Messaging systems
• Low latency systems
• Financial markets experience

Must have:

• Strong Python engineering experience
• Experience building products from inception through production
• Demonstrable ownership of systems and architecture decisions
• Strong backend engineering experience
• Distributed systems experience
• Cloud experience (AWS preferred)
• Stable career history with long-term commitment
• Strong communication skills

Preferred:

• Financial markets experience
• Trading systems experience
• Real-time systems experience
• Startup or scale-up experience
• Experience in smaller engineering teams with high ownership

Candidate Expectations

The client is specifically looking for candidates who can clearly answer: "What products have you built?" and "What was your contribution from idea through production?"