HFT Quantitative Developer

Flowdesk Group; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

100% health coverage

Company Pension scheme

Job summary

Flowdesk is building high‑performance trading infrastructure in London, focusing on low-latency OMS, feed handling, and strategy execution. The role requires hands-on Rust development for critical production systems and direct ownership of components near the market, including networking and latency optimizations.

You will work across order management, market data processing, and execution integration in a fast-paced, globally distributed fintech environment with institutional clients.

Qualifications

• Direct, hands-on experience building OMS, feed handlers, and/or strategy logic in a production environment.
• Strong Rust proficiency, async and non-async Rust.
• Experience writing fast parsing code for binary protocols and custom formats.
• FIX protocol and WebSocket connectivity in production.
• Solid understanding of distributed systems and state synchronization.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain Order Management System (OMS).
• Design and optimize feed handlers for high-throughput market data.
• Implement strategy logic and integrate with execution infrastructure.
• Create fast parsing pipelines for market data and order flow.
• Ensure robust exchange connectivity via FIX, WebSocket, and other protocols.
• Perform latency profiling, benchmarking, and continuous performance improvements.

Skills

Rust

OMS

Feed handlers

Latency optimization

WebSocket

Distributed systems

Tools

FIX protocol

WebSocket connectivity

DPDK/RDMA

Job description

At Flowdesk, we are building the infrastructure powering the next era of global finance. As a full-service digital asset trading and technology firm, we provide liquidity solutions, OTC trading, and market infrastructure that connect digital assets to global markets with institutional-grade precision, transparency, and scale. Flowdesk combines expertise from traditional finance, algorithmic trading, and blockchain technology to deliver always-on trading capabilities across the digital asset ecosystem.

Founded in 2020, we have grown into a global team supporting institutions, exchanges, and token issuers worldwide as the financial system evolves toward tokenized markets.

Why join Flowdesk? You'll be joining a company operating at the intersection of finance, technology, and crypto - solving complex market problems, building critical infrastructure, and helping shape how digital assets move globally. We move fast, think long term, and work with a strong ownership mindset across engineering, trading, product, operations, and business teams.

Role Description

Our technology team builds and maintains the low-latency trading infrastructure that powers our operations - from execution engines and exchange connectivity to risk and market data systems. We move fast, operate at scale, and expect our engineers to take direct ownership of production systems that impact live trading P&L.

We are looking for a hands-on Rust engineer to join our High-Frequency Trading team. This is a core technical role focused on the components that sit closest to the market: order management, feed handling, and strategy execution. The successful candidate will have direct experience building these systems in production and will be comfortable working at the systems level – networking, parsing, and latency optimisation.

• Order Management System (OMS) development and maintenance
• Feed handler design and optimisation - processing market data at high throughput
• Strategy logic implementation and integration with execution infrastructure
• Fast parsing pipelines for market data and order flow
• Exchange connectivity across FIX, WebSocket, and proprietary protocols
• Latency profiling, benchmarking, and continuous performance improvement

Requirements

Must Have

• Direct, hands-on experience building OMS, feed handlers, and/or strategy logic in a production environment
• Strong Rust - the primary language for this role. Experience with both async and non-async (synchronous / bare-metal) Rust is highly valued
• Experience writing fast parsing code - binary protocols, custom formats, minimal-copy pipelines
• FIX protocol and WebSocket connectivity in production
• Strong understanding of distributed systems and state synchronization

Preferred

• TradFi or institutional crypto market-making background
• Experience with kernel bypass networking (DPDK, RDMA, or similar)
• Familiarity with lock-free data structures and wait-free concurrency
• Options or derivatives experience
• C++ background - useful where Rust experience is being built

Location

• London (primary preference)
• Dubai (also open)
• Remote: considered only for candidates with 1-2+ years at a recognised institutional trading firm

Person Profile

• Curious and autonomous
• Highly motivated and results-driven
• Strong maths and analytical skills
• Ability to successfully manage multiple tasks in a fast-paced collaborative environment
• Professional proficiency in English

Company Culture & Values

• Take Action & Own the Mission
• Be of Service & Contribute
• Act with Integrity & Respect
• International environment (English is the main language)
• 100% health coverage
• Team events and offsites
• Company Pension scheme
• Learning and Development budget

Recruitment Process

Our process is consistent across all engineering roles and is designed to assess genuine technical depth. Candidates should expect the following stages:

• Stage 1: First round interview with a member of our Talent Acquisition team (45 mins)
• Stage 2: Binance take-home assignment, AI-assisted + online technical screen AI-free.
• Stage 3: 30-45 mins with CTO - assessment of system design, technical experience, discussion of AI output.
• Stage 4: Online CoderPad interview with HFT team - Rust focused.
• Stage 5: In-person technical interview covering live-coding, data-structure & algorithms round, and background and goals alignment.

Stage 6: Round-Up meeting with Head of Talent Strategy.

FLOWDESK | www.flowdesk.co