Lead Python Developer, Hedge Fund Risk

Winston Fox; Greater London; On-site; GBP 180,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Global Hedge Fund in London is seeking a highly technical Python Developer to join the central Risk team. You will build the platforms and tools used by Risk and Investment professionals to understand portfolios, monitor exposures, and make faster decisions.

The role emphasizes real-time, distributed processing, cloud-native infrastructure, and engineering excellence. You will work hands-on on data pipelines, real-time apps, and Lakehouse technologies, partnering with risk users directly.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional experience in financial markets and market risk (inferred from role)
• Exceptional programming ability in Python with SQL competence
• Deep understanding of software engineering, system design, and architecture
• Strong knowledge and experience with sophisticated distributed systems
• Experience implementing AI into workflows within risk or trading environments

Responsibilities

• Design overall systems architecture for risk platforms
• Build and evolve high-performance data pipelines and real-time applications
• Engineer systems capable of real-time processing and horizontal scale-out
• Work with distributed systems, messaging and event-driven architectures
• Build robust data platforms spanning relational databases, data pipelines and Lakehouse tech
• Partner with Risk and Investment users directly to deliver impactful tools
• Introduce strong engineering practices and raise standards across Risk
• Hands-on engineering without budget or KPI management focus

Skills

Python

SQL

Distributed systems

CS fundamentals

AI in workflows

Job description

Global Hedge Fund | London | Exceptional Compensation and Technology Environment

We are seeking a highly technical Python Developerto join the central Risk team at one of the world’s leading, most technologically sophisticated hedge funds. We can only consider candidates from Hedge Funds, proprietary trading firms, or investment banks with significant project ownership and business exposure.

You will join a highly technical team at the heart of the firm’s investment and risk architecture, building the platforms and tools Risk and Investment professionals use to understand portfolios, monitor exposures, and make better, faster decisions.

The Risk team is evolving a sophisticated portfolio research and monitoring platform towards increasingly real-time, distributed and scalable processing. You will work on engineering problems spanning real-time applications, large-scale data processing, distributed systems, data pipelines, cloud-native infrastructure and platform reliability.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Working on overall systems architecture design
• Designing, building and evolving high-performance data pipelines and real-time applications
• Engineering systems capable of real-time processing and horizontal scale-out
• Working extensively with distributed systems, messaging and event-driven architectures
• Building robust data platforms spanning relational databases, data pipelines and Lakehouse technologies
• Partnering directly with Risk and Investment users rather than operating several layers removed from the business
• Introducing strong engineering practices and helping raise engineering standards across the Risk function
• This is fully hands-on, and we are interested in your engineering excellence, not managing budgets or setting staff kpi's

What We’re Looking For

We want to hire a top-tier Python Developer from the Financial Markets who combines superb computer science fundamentals with the ability to design, build and operate complex production Risk systems in fast-moving environments.

You are likely to have

• 5+ years of professional experience in financial markets and market risk
• Exceptional programming ability in Python, alongside strong SQL.
• Deep understanding of software engineering, system design, and architecture
• Strong knowledge and experience working on sophisticated distributed systems
• Experience implementing AI into workflows

Location: London

Compensation: Apex-level compensation and benefits

Work: 4x days on-premises + 1x day wfh

Time: Hire in 2026 - buyout, sign-on, and guarantees available