Horse Racing Team: Senior Software Developer (Quant systems)

TN United Kingdom; London; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

An innovative firm in the sports prediction sector is seeking a Senior Software Developer to join a dynamic Horse Racing trading team. This role emphasizes hands-on software engineering, where creativity and problem-solving are paramount. You'll work closely with a talented group, enhancing quant workflows and optimizing production systems. The position offers a competitive salary, significant bonus potential, and a culture that values experimentation and collaboration. If you are ready to make an impact in a fast-paced environment, this opportunity is perfect for you.

Benefits

Competitive salary

Significant bonus potential (up to 30%)

Enhanced pension match

Health insurance

Life assurance

Sabbatical leave after five years

33 days of annual leave

Qualifications

• 3+ years in commercial software engineering focusing on performance and scalability.
• Proficient in Python for numerical computing and machine learning.
• Strong debugging and performance-tuning skills.

Responsibilities

• Improve machine learning model implementations for efficiency.
• Design and optimize production trade generation systems.
• Collaborate with quants to productionize models.

Skills

Python

Machine Learning

SQL

C/C++/Rust

Debugging

Performance Tuning

Interpersonal Skills

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

ZeroMQ

RabbitMQ

PostgreSQL

Python 3.10+

C

Go

Job description

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Horse Racing Team: Senior Software Developer (Quant systems), London

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Client:

Mustard Systems

Location:

London, United Kingdom

Job Category:

Other

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EU work permit required:

Yes

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Job Reference:

8944a35ead3a

Job Views:

13

Posted:

26.04.2025

Expiry Date:

10.06.2025

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Job Description:

What You Won’t Have to Do in this role

• Be bogged down by red tape or excessive bureaucracy.
• Check in repeatedly or wait for permission to try new ideas.
• Aim for perfect code or endless code reviews.

Are you a creative problem-solver who thrives in a fast-paced, experimental environment? Do you relish the challenge of building prototype software quickly, testing ideas, and learning from failure as much as success? Mustard Systems is seeking a Senior Software Developer to join our talented Horse Racing trading team, where you'll collaborate with a unique blend of mathematicians, statisticians, international chess masters, and Countdown Octo-Champs to tackle some of the most complex and exciting problems in sports prediction.

The Horse Racing team specialises in predicting the outcomes of Horse Racing around the world with the primary focus of the team being building in-house sophisticated trading systems and predictive models.

We are looking for a Senior Quantitative Software Developer to support our quant team by improving the engineering quality of our research and production systems.

In this is a hands-on role, you will help enable more efficient quant workflows by designing and optimising our quant production systems to ensure they are robust, performant and scalable. You will work hand-in-hand with members of the quant team.

This position reports to the Head of Technology, and is first and foremost a software engineering role, not quant research role.

The ideal candidate will:

• Be familiar with software engineering best practices and have strong coding skills.
• Be able to refine and optimize quant code, improving research efficiency.
• Have an ambition to work in environments where the speed of development is prioritised over formal processes and approach work with a self-starter attitude
• Have confidence to take ownership of projects and experiment with new ideas.

What You'll Do

• Improve implementations of machine learning models developed in-house by the quant team (e.g. how fast models run on historical data).
• Be responsible for the software side and system design of production trade generation and backtesting systems from the ground up.
• Contribute to the design and changes of quant codebases to improve our speed of iteration and deployment, including when scaling to more data and models.
• Help develop tools to improve our research infrastructure, leading to gains in research efficiency.
• Collaborate with quants to productionize models. Part of this will involve willingness to understand how the models work.
• Be responsible for quant systems monitoring and alerting.
• Work with freedom to build software the way you want with minimal restrictions to following the status quo.
• Work predominantly in-office, fostering close collaboration and a team-driven approach and recognising the value of face-to-face teamwork for this role.

Requirements

To succeed in this role, you’ll need:

• Strong software engineering skills, with a focus on performance, maintainability, and scalability. At least 3+ years of experience in a commercial software engineering role.
• Proficiency in Python, particularly for numerical computing and machine learning
• Particularly numpy, pandas (both must haves)
• Good working knowledge of a fast language such as C / C++ / Rust.
• Understanding of production-level system design and architecture.
• Strong debugging, profiling, and performance-tuning skills.
• Basic familiarity with HPC infrastructure and tools.
• Proficiency in SQL, working with structured data stored in psql databases and optimizing queries.
• A business-focused mindset, with the ability to prioritize work based on its impact on trading and research outcomes.
• Strong interpersonal skills and willingness to collaborate with a team of researchers.

You’ll have the freedom to choose the tools and technologies that fit each problem best, but here’s a snapshot of what we currently use:

• Python 3.10+ for most of our development.
• C and Go for high-performance systems where needed.
• ZeroMQ and RabbitMQ for backend communication.
• Basic web front ends for internal tools.

In this role, You’ll act as a senior member of the team, bringing your own creative ideas and experience to drive projects forward while mentoring others. You’ll work alongside some of the sharpest minds in the industry, in a culture that values creativity, experimentation, and diversity of thought. If you’re ready to make an impact by innovating at the cutting edge of sports prediction, we’d love to hear from you.

Your Portfolio or Personal Projects – If you have built something outside of your day job, we’re keen to see it. Whether it’s a passion project, an experimental tool, or something a little quirky unrelated to this role, we’d love to hear about it.

• Competitive salary and significant bonus potential (up to 30%).
• Enhanced pension match with salary sacrifice option.
• Health insurance and life assurance.
• Sabbatical leave after five years.
• 33 days of annual leave (including bank holidays).

We have a hybrid working approach at Mustard Systems. We enjoy working and collaborating together and require people to be in our Hammersmith office four days a week. If you require any additional flexibility, please let our hiring team know as part of the recruitment process.