Senior C++ Engineer (Trading Systems)

Ocean Red; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary bonus

Pension 5% matched

Private medical

Parental leave 20 weeks full pay

Job summary

Ocean Red, a regulated European trading venue, seeks a senior C++ engineer to join a fast‑moving, small team building and stabilising low‑latency components in production. You’ll work closely with Product, Infrastructure, QA and Operations on real trading features and performance harnesses.

You’ll mentor mid‑level engineers, set best practices for rapid code delivery, and bring an operational perspective into design reviews.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of production C++ experience
• Linux debugging with gdb/strace/perf
• Experience with UDP, multicast and TCP
• Ability to diagnose complex production issues and prove root cause
• SQL querying for system data
• Familiarity with AI coding tools

Responsibilities

• Develop high‑performance C++ services for live trading
• Collaborate across Product, Infrastructure, QA and Ops
• Mentor mid‑level engineers and raise code quality
• Contribute to design reviews with an operational perspective

Skills

Production C++

Linux debugging

Networking UDP/Multicast/TCP

Diagnose production issues

SQL querying

AI coding tools

Tools

Docker

Git

Jira

CI/CD

SQL

Linux

Python

Bash

QuestDB

Dolt

Job description

Company | Regulated European trading venue and exchange technology provider, part of a larger market infrastructure group

Impact | Production stability, speed of new trading features to market, tooling that lets Ops and QA fix issues faster

Size | Sub-200 people

Location | City of London

Hybrid | Minimum 2 days a week in the office

Benefits | Discretionary annual bonus, 5% matched pension, private medical, and 20 weeks’ full pay for primary caregivers on parental leave.

The Role

Most C++ engineers at an exchange spend years inside one component. This job is the opposite. You’ll join a small rapid development team that takes on whatever is hardest that week: an intermittent fault in high-volume order handling, a proof of concept for a new trading feature, or a performance harness that recreates a market stress day.

Everything you touch runs on a live regulated market, so your work lands in production, not in a backlog. You’ll work across Product, Infrastructure, QA and Operations, with the low latency team that builds the matching engine sitting alongside you.

You’ll mentor mid-level engineers, set the standard for how fast-turnaround code gets built and tested properly, and bring the operational view into design reviews. If you enjoy the detective work as much as the build, this is the seat.

What makes you a great fit:

• You’ve written production C++ (C++11 or later) for 10+ years, building performant, scalable applications.
• You debug at system level on Linux with gdb, strace and perf, and understand UDP, multicast and TCP well enough to find what’s breaking.
• You’ve diagnosed complex production issues in high-performance systems, built reproducible test cases to prove the root cause, and explained it clearly to people who don’t write code.

You’ll also use SQL to query system data and AI coding tools as part of how you work day to day.

The broader technical team uses:

C++, Python, Bash, Linux, SQL, Git, Jira, Kanban, CI/CD, Docker, QuestDB, Dolt.

Interview Process | CV Review > Screening call with us > Submission > > Offer