Quantitative Developer - iSAM Securities

iSAM; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

iSAM is seeking a hands-on senior engineer to build and operate the low-latency distributed systems at the core of its trading platform, including market data, order routing, pricing, execution, risk, and the messaging fabric that ties them together.

You will join a collaborative team where you have a strong technical voice, contribute to design, drive both the systems and the engineering processes to a better state, and deliver improvements end to end.

Qualifications

• Fluent in modern C++ and able to design latency-critical components.
• Proven track record designing low-latency distributed systems in a financial/trading environment.
• Understanding of latency drivers across network, hardware, OS, and language layers.
• Demonstrated ability to deliver large efforts across multiple engineers and teams.
• Extensive production experience and the ability to avoid common pitfalls.
• Experience with exchange connectivity or market data is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to and shape the design of latency-critical distributed components: market data, order routing, execution, risk, and the messaging fabric between them.
• Drive systems and engineering processes to a better state: identify weaknesses, propose direction, and deliver improvements end to end.
• Reason about the full latency stack across network, hardware, OS, and language layers, and make deliberate, measured trade-offs.
• Deliver at scale across multiple engineers and teams: set technical direction, align stakeholders, and coordinate delivery.

Skills

Low-latency distributed systems

C++

Trading floor experience

Problem solving under pressure

Delivery of large projects

Tools

C++

Job description

iSAM is an innovative, financial technology firm specialising in quantitative trading, comprised of iSAM Funds and iSAM Securities.

iSAM Securities regulated by the FCA, SFC, and CIMA registered, is a leading algorithmic trading firm and trusted electronic market maker, providing liquidity, technology and prime services to institutional clients and trading venues globally. The firm offers full-service prime brokerage and execution via its cutting-edge proprietary technology, as well as market leading analytics, cleared through the group’s bank Prime Brokers.

iSAM Funds is an alternative asset manager specialising in systematic investing. Each strategy is unique, provides a specialist quantitative approach and is designed to deliver highly diversifying absolute returns for institutional portfolios.

About the Role:

Our team builds and operates the low-latency distributed systems at the core of our
trading platform - market data, order routing, pricing, execution, risk, and the
messaging fabric that ties them together. This is a hands‑on senior engineering role
for someone who has architected such systems in a trading environment, not just
maintained them. You will join a collaborative team where you have a strong technical
voice, contributing to design and driving both the systems and the engineering
processes around them to a better state.

Responsibilities:

• Contribute to and help shape the design of latency‑critical distributed
  components: market data, order routing, execution, risk, and the messaging
  fabric between them.
• Drive systems and engineering processes to a better state: identify weaknesses,
  propose direction, and deliver improvements end to end.
• Reason about the full latency stack across network, hardware, OS, and language
  layers, and make deliberate, measured trade-offs.
• Deliver at scale across multiple engineers and teams: set technical direction,
  align stakeholders, and coordinate delivery.

Qualifications:

• Fluent in modern C++.
• Proven track record designing critical low‑latency distributed systems in a
  hedge fund, prop trading, or investment banking environment.
• Concrete, demonstrable understanding of what drives a latency profile across
  the network, hardware/architecture, OS, and language layers.
• Demonstrated ability to deliver large efforts spanning multiple people and
  teams.
• Enough hard‑won production experience (“scars”) to know which approaches to
  avoid and why.
• Experience delivering performance‑critical systems measured and tuned against
  demanding latency targets.
• Exposure to exchange connectivity and market data)

Personal Attributes:

• Positive, pragmatic, and collaborative under pressure.
• A driver, not a passenger: you move systems and teams forward rather than
  maintaining the status quo or talking without shipping.
• Deeply aware of trade‑offs - performance vs. complexity vs. maintainability vs.
  delivery time.