Application Services Engineer - Trading - Low Latency

Square One Resources; London; Hybrid; GBP 125,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading recruitment consultancy seeks an experienced Application Services Engineer to support and manage low latency infrastructure for trading applications in London. You will collaborate with teams to deliver solutions and ensure the performance of trading systems. Ideal candidates will have a strong background in network engineering and be proficient in scripting automation. This contract role offers up to £500 per day.

Qualifications

• Strong background in low latency network engineering.
• Proven experience with packet capture tools.
• Familiarity with SRE tools and practices.
• Experience supporting real-time trading applications.
• Comfortable working across Linux systems.

Responsibilities

• Support and manage infrastructure for the Bank's electronic business.
• Deliver low latency connectivity solutions.
• Collaborate with teams to design reliable systems.
• Manage performance of global connectivity systems.
• Lead testing and benchmarking initiatives.

Skills

Low latency network engineering

Packet capture and analysis tools

Scripting and automation (Python, Bash, PowerShell)

Messaging middleware knowledge

Observability platforms exposure

Excellent communication skills

Tools

Wireshark

tcpdump

Corvil/PICO

Job description

Overview

Job Title: Application Services Engineer - Trading - Low Latency

Location: London - 3 days per week in the office

Salary/Rate: Up to £500 per day INSIDE IR35

Start Date: 18/10/2025

Job Type: Contract

Job Responsibilities/Objectives

You will be a member of the team that is responsible for the support and management of the infrastructure that supports the Bank\'s electronic business. Team members will work closely with core Infrastructure teams, development and the business responding to requests, fault reports, often being required to resolve issues quickly, under pressure and sometimes out of hours. In addition to business as usual activity there are a great number of infrastructure projects and tasks that must be completed.

• Deliver and support low latency connectivity and monitoring solutions for the Global Markets business, aligned with front-office trading and regulatory needs.
• Apply SRE principles to improve availability, latency, performance, and capacity planning across trading infrastructure.
• Collaborate with network and platform engineers to design reliable, self-healing systems and reduce manual intervention through automation.
• Own and execute the Global Markets connectivity roadmap, from project delivery through to operational handoff and lifecycle management.
• Partner with business stakeholders and platform owners to ensure infrastructure and observability tooling meets evolving trading requirements.
• Monitor and manage capacity and performance of global connectivity systems, working with regional teams to aggregate local intelligence.
• Conduct deep-dive post-incident analysis and forensic reviews during high-impact market events (e.g., non-farm payroll), using packet analysis to identify systemic improvements.
• Develop and maintain automated alerting, health checks, and dashboards, supporting proactive detection of issues and system degradation.
• Lead lab-based testing and benchmarking initiatives for new connectivity solutions, ensuring readiness for production deployment.
• Produce operational and performance KPIs, SLO/SLI metrics, and executive summaries to support senior decision-making.
• Champion continuous improvement and innovation, driving technology adoption in monitoring, resiliency, and incident response tooling.

Required Skills/Experience

• Strong background in low latency network engineering, including TCP/IP, multicast, traffic shaping, and performance analysis.
• Proven experience with packet capture and analysis tools (Wireshark, tcpdump, Corvil/PICO); ability to build custom decoders is highly advantageous.
• Familiarity with SRE tools and practices, including infrastructure as code (IaC), CI/CD pipelines, error budgets, and reliability-focused SLIs/SLOs.
• Experience supporting real-time trading applications, including feed handlers, matching engines, and algo trading platforms.
• Strong working knowledge of messaging middleware (Solace, 29West, Tibco, LBM, or equivalent) in performance-sensitive environments.
• Proficient in scripting and automation using Python, Bash, or PowerShell to streamline monitoring, alerting, and recovery workflows.
• Knowledge of FIX, market data, and order routing protocols in a trading environment.
• Exposure to observability platforms such as ITRS Geneos, Prometheus, Grafana, or custom telemetry stacks.
• Comfortable working across Linux systems, hybrid infrastructure, and global production environments.
• Excellent communication and reporting skills, with ability to translate technical data into actionable business insights.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please apply now with your updated CV in Microsoft Word/PDF format.

Disclaimer
Notwithstanding any guidelines given to level of experience sought, we will consider candidates from outside this range if they can demonstrate the necessary competencies.
Square One is acting as both an employment agency and an employment business, and is an equal opportunities recruitment business. Square One embraces diversity and will treat everyone equally. Please see our website for our full diversity statement.