KDB Application Technology Lead Analyst (VP)

Citigroup; Belfast City District; On-site; GBP 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Citigroup is seeking an Applications Development Technology Lead Analyst (KDB Lead Developer) to architect and implement high-performance tick and time-series data systems. The role guides technical direction and mentors engineers across trading, market data, and analytics teams.

You will lead design, development, and optimization of real-time and historical KDB+/q architectures, with strong collaboration across business and infrastructure units.

Qualifications

• Hands-on development in KDB+/q in high-volume, low-latency trading environments.
• Mastery of KDB+/q and vectorized q code.
• Experience with Tickerplant, Real-Time Databases, Historical Databases, and CEP.
• Knowledge of IPC, multi-threading, memory allocators, partitioned maintenance.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end design of scalable KDB+ architectures.
• Build high-throughput feedhandlers, APIs, and microservices interfacing with messaging fabrics.
• Oversee migration, integration, or hybrid deployment of KDB+ on-premises and in cloud environments.
• Drive DR/HA and automated testing and CI/CD pipelines.

Skills

KDB+/q mastery

Low-latency design

Python data stack

C/C++ performance

Linux/Unix

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Git

CI/CD

Job description

The Applications Development Technology Lead Analyst (KDB Lead Developer) is a senior-level technical leadership role responsible for architecting, establishing, and implementing high-performance, low-latency tick and time-series data systems. This role leads the design, development, optimization, and support of real-time and historical KDB+/q architectures supporting Electronic Trading, Market Data, Quantitative Research, Risk, and Analytics.

The ideal candidate will serve as the subject matter expert (SME) in KDB+/q, guiding technical direction, mentoring engineers, and collaborating closely with business stakeholders, quantitative researchers, traders, and infrastructure teams.

Key Responsibilities

Architecture, Design & Technical Leadership

• Lead the end-to-end design, implementation, and maintenance of scalable, fault-tolerant KDB+ architectures, including real-time tickerplants (TP), Real-Time Databases (RDB), Historical Databases (HDB), Real-Time Subscribers (RTS), Intraday Databases (IDB), and Gateway (GW) query routers.
• Define and enforce best practices for q code development, schema design, memory management, data partitioning/splaying, query optimization, and indexing/attributes (p#, g#, s#, u#).
• Serve as the primary technical authority for KDB+ platform engineering, ensuring architectural alignment with enterprise technology blueprints, cloud adoption strategies, and compliance standards.
• Partner with Quantitative Analysts, Trading Desks, and Risk Managers to translate complex quantitative models and business requirements into highly optimized time-series calculations and analytical engines.

Development & Integration

• Design and build high-throughput feedhandlers, APIs, and microservices interfacing KDB+ with upstream messaging fabrics (e.g., Kafka, Solace, LBM/29West, ZeroMQ) and downstream consumer platforms.
• Develop high-performance C/C++ or Python shared libraries (embedPy, PyQ, C API) for real-time analytics, machine learning integration, or proprietary calculation engines.
• Oversee the migration, integration, or hybrid deployment of KDB+ on-premises and in cloud environments (e.g., AWS, GCP, KX Insights).

Performance Engineering & Stability

• Conduct deep profiling, capacity planning, and latency/memory optimization across high-volume market and transactional data streams.
• Implement robust Disaster Recovery (DR), business continuity (COB), high-availability (HA), and automated failover mechanisms across distributed multi-region environments.
• Develop and institutionalize automated testing frameworks (unit, regression, and load testing) and modern CI/CD release pipelines for KDB+ code and data schemas.

People Leadership, Governance & Controls

• Lead, mentor, and coach mid-level and junior KDB developers; conduct rigorous code reviews and foster a culture of technical excellence.
• Supervise work allocation, sprint deliverables, and release management across distributed agile development pods.
• Appropriately assess risk when business decisions are made, demonstrating particular consideration for the firm's reputation and safeguarding the firm, its clients, and assets by driving compliance with applicable laws, rules, and regulations, adhering to Policy, applying sound ethical judgment, and managing control issues with transparency.

Qualifications & Skill Set

Core Technical Experience

• Proven hands-on experience in application software development with a specialized focus on KDB+/q in a high-volume, low-latency financial trading or market data environment.
• Deep KDB+/q Mastery: Expert proficiency in writing idiomatic, vectorized q code and advanced complex event processing (CEP).
• Proven track record designing and tuning full-stack KDB+ Tick architectures (Tickerplant, Chained Tickerplant, RDB, HDB, CEP, Gateway/Query Routers).
• Advanced knowledge of IPC, multi-threading (-s), worker processes, memory allocators, compression algorithms, and partitioned database maintenance.

Languages & Frameworks

• Strong proficiency in Python (including data science stack: Pandas, NumPy, and integration tools like embedPy, PyKX, or qPython).
• Solid understanding of Java interface programming with KDB+ and platform.
• Familiarity with enterprise messaging middleware ( Kafka , Solace , Tibco EMS/LBM ).

Operating Systems & Infrastructure

• Expert-level proficiency in Linux/Unix operating systems, shell scripting (Bash), and system-level performance tuning (CPU affinity, NUMA, I/O schedulers, NVMe/SSD storage optimization).

DevOps, Tooling & Modernization

• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines (Git, Teckton, Harness, GitHub, Artifactory etc).
• Knowledge of containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes/OpenShift) as applied to KDB+ workloads is a strong plus.

Business & Domain Knowledge

• Strong knowledge of Capital Markets, Electronic Trading, and Financial Instruments (Equities, FX, Fixed Income, Rates, Commodities, or Derivatives).
• Familiarity with Market Data protocols (L1/L2/L3 order books, FIX, ITCH, OUCH, BBO/NBBO) and qu