Backend Engineer, Investment Platform

St. James's Place; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary annual bonus scheme

28 Days' annual leave

Private Medical Insurance

Employer pension contribution 10-15%

Parental leave enhancements

Critical illness cover & life support

EV salary sacrifice scheme

Job summary

St. James's Place seeks a senior engineering leader to design and evolve Investment Platform services, data platforms, and cloud-native solutions. You will set standards, drive DevSecOps, and mentor engineers across the software lifecycle.

You will partner with Platform and Enterprise Architects to shape future-state architectures, own critical backend services and data pipelines, and ensure regulatory and security compliance in a scalable investment technology environment.

Qualifications

• Strong experience designing, building, and supporting scalable data and backend platform solutions using Python and SQL.
• Experience in Asset Management, Investment Management, or a closely related Financial Services organisation, with an understanding of investment platform data, operational, and regulatory challenges
• Hands-on experience owning Airflow and dbt end-to-end, including designing DAGs and dbt projects, setting standards, and running, upgrading, and supporting them
• Experience delivering cloud-native data and integration solutions on AWS
• Strong understanding of data architecture, integration, and ETL/ELT design patterns, and selecting approaches for business, operational, and technical requirements
• Experience implementing Infrastructure as Code, automated testing, and CI/CD pipelines
• Experience establishing engineering standards, providing technical leadership, and mentoring engineers to improve engineering quality, consistency, and delivery outcomes
• Experience operating production platforms, including monitoring, observability, incident management, and root cause analysis, with a focus on automation and continuous improvement
• Strong stakeholder management skills and ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear, actionable recommendations for business and investment stakeholders
• Будет плюсом: experience with investment data domains such as portfolio holdings, securities, pricing, benchmarks, transactions, or market data; Snowflake; integrations with third-party investment technology platforms and market data providers such as Bloomberg, FactSet, or Aladdin; contributing to platform architecture roadmaps, engineering governance, or long-term technology strategy in a large-scale enterprise; familiarity with Linux-based development environments and modern cloud engineering tools; knowledge of Domain-Driven Design, software design patterns, and architectural principles for maintainable, scalable platforms

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical design, development, and evolution of Investment Platform services, integrations, data platforms, and cloud-native solutions.
• Define, promote, and enforce engineering standards, best practices, and architectural principles across the Investment Platform.
• Provide technical leadership throughout the software development lifecycle, from solution design through deployment and operational support.
• Design scalable, resilient, and secure backend services, APIs, and data pipelines.
• Lead significant platform initiatives and ensure delivery of complex cross-functional projects.
• Mentor and coach engineers on software design, quality engineering, cloud engineering, and platform architecture.
• Partner with Platform and Enterprise Architects to define future-state architectures and technology roadmaps.
• Drive adoption of DevSecOps, Infrastructure as Code, observability, automated testing, and CI/CD.
• Lead investigations and resolution of critical production incidents, identify root causes, and implement preventative improvements.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend adoption to improve platform capability, performance, scalability, and risk management.
• Ensure platform solutions meet regulatory, security, governance, and operational resilience requirements.
• Act as the senior technical SME for Investment Platform backend technologies across Technology, Data, Architecture, and Vendor Management teams.
• Influence technical decisions by balancing business priorities, technical debt, operational risk, and long-term platform sustainability.
• Champion automation, innovation, and continuous improvement across the Investment Technology estate, particularly through an SRE lens.

Skills

Python

SQL

Asset management domain

Airflow

dbt

AWS

DevSecOps

CI/CD

Mentoring

Data architecture

Tools

Airflow

dbt

AWS

Job description

Описание:

The Investment Platforms team partners with the Investment Directorate and Investment Operations teams to deliver technology change and operate systems underpinning the investment proposition. It manages applications, platform technologies, data stores, market data solutions, and third-party managed services, supporting scalable, secure investment systems and operational excellence across the investment lifecycle.

Задачи:

• Lead the technical design, development, and evolution of Investment Platform services, integrations, data platforms, and cloud-native solutions.
• Define, promote, and enforce engineering standards, best practices, and architectural principles across the Investment Platform.
• Provide technical leadership throughout the software development lifecycle, from solution design through deployment and operational support.
• Design scalable, resilient, and secure backend services, APIs, and data pipelines.
• Lead significant platform initiatives and ensure delivery of complex cross-functional projects.
• Mentor and coach engineers on software design, quality engineering, cloud engineering, and platform architecture.
• Partner with Platform and Enterprise Architects to define future-state architectures and technology roadmaps.
• Drive adoption of DevSecOps, Infrastructure as Code, observability, automated testing, and CI/CD.
• Lead investigations and resolution of critical production incidents, identify root causes, and implement preventative improvements.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend adoption to improve platform capability, performance, scalability, and risk management.
• Ensure platform solutions meet regulatory, security, governance, and operational resilience requirements.
• Act as the senior technical SME for Investment Platform backend technologies across Technology, Data, Architecture, and Vendor Management teams.
• Influence technical decisions by balancing business priorities, technical debt, operational risk, and long-term platform sustainability.
• Champion automation, innovation, and continuous improvement across the Investment Technology estate, particularly through an SRE lens.

Требования:

• Strong experience designing, building, and supporting scalable data and backend platform solutions using Python and SQL
• Experience in Asset Management, Investment Management, or a closely related Financial Services organisation, with an understanding of investment platform data, operational, and regulatory challenges
• Hands-on experience owning Airflow and dbt end-to-end, including designing DAGs and dbt projects, setting standards, and running, upgrading, and supporting them
• Experience delivering cloud-native data and integration solutions on AWS
• Strong understanding of data architecture, integration, and ETL/ELT design patterns, and selecting approaches for business, operational, and technical requirements
• Experience implementing Infrastructure as Code, automated testing, and CI/CD pipelines
• Experience establishing engineering standards, providing technical leadership, and mentoring engineers to improve engineering quality, consistency, and delivery outcomes
• Experience operating production platforms, including monitoring, observability, incident management, and root cause analysis, with a focus on automation and continuous improvement
• Strong stakeholder management skills and ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear, actionable recommendations for business and investment stakeholders
• Будет плюсом: experience with investment data domains such as portfolio holdings, securities, pricing, benchmarks, transactions, or market data; Snowflake; integrations with third-party investment technology platforms and market data providers such as Bloomberg, FactSet, or Aladdin; contributing to platform architecture roadmaps, engineering governance, or long-term technology strategy in a large-scale enterprise; familiarity with Linux-based development environments and modern cloud engineering tools; knowledge of Domain-Driven Design, software design patterns, and architectural principles for maintainable, scalable platforms

Условия:

• Discretionary annual bonus scheme based on individual and company performance
• 28 Days' annual leave plus bank holidays, with the option to purchase up to 5 additional days
• Company-funded Private Medical Insurance for the employee and immediate family
• Non-contributory employer pension contribution of 10%, increasing with length of service up to 15%, with the option to increase it through salary sacrifice
• Enhanced parental leave with up to 26 weeks' full pay
• Company-funded critical illness cover, income protection, and life assurance
• EV salary sacrifice scheme through Tusker