Senior Front Office Trading Engineer

CMC Markets; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

CMC Markets is seeking a Senior FO Trading Engineer to join our Quantitative Strategies team within Pricing & Risk. This hands-on role focuses on ultra-low latency pricing and risk systems that power our global trading operations from our London office.

The position requires strong Java development skills, deep knowledge of performance tuning, and experience with pricing, risk or electronic trading platforms.

Qualifications

• Hands-on Java development experience in low-latency financial systems.
• Strong understanding of performance optimisation, concurrency and JVM internals.
• Experience with pricing, risk or electronic trading platforms is highly beneficial.

Responsibilities

• Develop and optimise ultra-low latency pricing and risk systems in a high-frequency trading environment.
• Design scalable, resilient trading and risk components and contribute to architectural decisions.
• Collaborate with Quants, Front Office and Business Operations to evolve electronic trading infrastructure.
• Mentor junior developers and promote clean-code practices and robust design patterns.

Skills

Java development

Performance tuning

Concurrency

JVM internals

Pricing/risk/trading platforms

Problem solving

Job description

CMC Markets is seeking a Senior FO Trading Engineer to join our Quantitative Strategies team within Pricing & Risk, working on our high-performance, high-frequency trading platform.

This is a hands-on role at the core of our market-making technology stack, where nanoseconds matter and engineering excellence is critical. You’ll design and build ultra-low latency pricing and risk systems that directly power our global trading operations.

If you thrive in performance critical environments and want your work to have real market impact, we would love to hear from you.

Please note that this is an onsite role that will require you to work within our London office (near Liverpool street) 5 days on site per week.

The Role

Ultra-Low Latency Engineering

• Develop and optimise high-performance Java (21+) systems for pricing, risk and trading.
• Build and enhance components within a low latency, high-throughput trading architecture.
• Apply advanced concurrency, memory management and performance tuning techniques.

System Design & Ownership

• Take responsibility for designing scalable, resilient and maintainable systems.
• Contribute to architectural decisions across the trading and risk platform.
• Build tooling to improve monitoring, maintenance and performance diagnostics.

Trading-Focused Collaboration

• Work closely with Quants, Financial Engineering, Front Office and Business Operations.
• Support live trading systems, troubleshooting time-critical production issues.
• Contribute to the continuous evolution of our electronic trading infrastructure.

Mentorship & Technical Leadership

• Provide guidance and mentorship to junior developers.
• Champion engineering best practices, clean code principles and robust design patterns.

What You will Bring

• Strong hands-on Java development experience within low latency financial systems.
• Deep understanding of performance optimisation, concurrency and JVM internals.
• Experience working on pricing, risk or electronic trading platforms.
• Knowledge of FIX protocol, order routing and broker connectivity highly beneficial.
• Strong mathematical and problem-solving mindset.
• Experience across asset classes such as FX, Equities, Commodities or Derivatives preferred.
• Ability to operate calmly in a fast-paced, front-office trading environment.
• Experience mentoring engineers and influencing technical direction.

Why Join CMC Markets?

• Direct impact on global trading and risk systems.
• Close proximity to the trading floor and real-time market operations.
• High-visibility role within a performance-driven engineering culture.
• Strong focus on continuous learning and technical excellence.
• Clear progression opportunities into senior technical and leadership roles.

CMC Markets is an equal opportunities employer and positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of gender, sexual orientation, marital or civil partner status, gender reassignment, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, disability or age.