Senior Software Engineer – Critical Engineering

Optiver - Trading Academy; Sydney; On-site; AUD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Performance bonus

Global peers and collaboration

Mentorship and development

Daily breakfast and in-house barista

Gym membership and chair massages

Social events and trips

Relocation assistance and visa support

Job summary

Optiver's Sydney office is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join the Critical Engineering APAC team. You’ll work in C++ on real-time, low-latency trading systems and collaborate across domains to deliver robust, production-grade services.

You’ll shape technical direction, own end-to-end delivery, mentor engineers, and help improve platform resilience and throughput in a fast-paced financial markets environment.

Qualifications

• 5+ years building and operating production software systems.
• Strong CS fundamentals: OS, data structures, algorithms and networking.
• Practical Linux/Unix proficiency.
• Familiarity with at least one scripting language (Python).
• Experience across full SDLC: requirements, design, implementation, testing, deployment, operation.
• Track record of solving technically challenging problems and shipping to real users.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and operate components of Critical Engineering’s APAC platform.
• Write production-grade C++ for real-time, low-latency services.
• Set technical direction and make architectural decisions for production load.
• Collaborate with cross-domain teams to translate business problems into technical solutions.
• Manage deployments to reduce risk and provide production support.
• Maintain quality through code reviews, testing and observability.
• Drive continuous improvement by modernizing legacy processes.
• Mentor and role-model for engineers; raise engineering bar across the team.

Skills

C++

Object-oriented programming

Linux/Unix

Python scripting

Distributed systems

Real-time systems

Networking fundamentals

Tools

CI/CD pipelines

Relational databases

Python

Job description

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, today we are a leading liquidity provider, with close to 2,000 employees in offices around the world, united in our commitment to improve the market through competitive pricing, execution and risk management. By providing liquidity on multiple exchanges across the world in various financial instruments we participate in the safeguarding of healthy and efficient markets. We provide liquidity to financial markets using our own capital, at our own risk, trading a wide range of products: listed derivatives, cash equities, ETFs, bonds and foreign currencies.

Optiver’s Sydney office is one of the primary players within Asian markets, trading a range of products. Established in 1996, we’re an active participant on the Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan exchanges, and act as Optiver’s APAC head office.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join Critical Engineering APAC team in Sydney - the platform group that builds and operates the systems Optiver’s trading stack runs on. Every day, our trading platform processes huge volumes of data, prices thousands of financial instruments and makes millions of trading decisions, all in a safe, deterministic, real-time manner. The systems you will own sit underneath that platform, spanning real-time risk controls, reference data, trade-lifecycle infrastructure and trading-integrity systems.

You will work hands-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 Critical Engineering’s APAC platform, taking ownership of the delivery of meaningful, cross-team projects.

• Write production-grade C++ for the real-time, low-latency and high-throughput services that enable Optiver’s 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 across the firm 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

We need our next engineer to be someone with:

• Skilled at object-oriented programming in C++, or Java/C# with a strong desire to work in C++.

• 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).

• 5+ 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’ll join a culture of collaboration and excellence, where you’ll be 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.

In return for your expertise, you will have access to a range of Optiver perks, including:

• A performance-based bonus structure unmatched anywhere in the industry. We combine our profits across desks, teams and offices into a global profit pool, fostering a truly collaborative environment

• 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, and it is hardwired through every stage of our hiring process. We encourage applications from candidates from 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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