Senior Java Engineer: SRE

The IG Group; City Of London; Hybrid; GBP 75,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading FinTech company in London is seeking a Technical Lead with strong Java and distributed systems expertise. You will optimize systems, lead incident responses, and implement monitoring standards. The ideal candidate has a passion for automation and a background in financial services. This role offers competitive pay and a hybrid working environment, encouraging collaboration and innovation.

Benefits

Private medical cover

Life insurance

Contribution to gym memberships

25 days holiday with additional days for special occasions

Unlimited access to LinkedIn Learning

Qualifications

• Strong Java development experience with a deep understanding of JVM internals.
• Proven experience with containerisation and orchestration.
• Hands-on expertise with message brokers in production environments.

Responsibilities

• Implement monitoring and observability using OpenTelemetry standards.
• Lead incident response efforts and conduct blameless postmortems.
• Define and maintain Service Level Objectives for critical services.

Skills

Java development

Distributed systems troubleshooting

Message brokers

Container orchestration

OpenTelemetry

Tools

Kafka

ActiveMQ

Nomad

Job description

Responsibilities

• Implement comprehensive monitoring and observability using OpenTelemetry standards
• Identify single points of failure in distributed systems
• Analyse system performance across OS and network layers, identifying resource utilisation patterns and bottlenecks to optimise efficiency
• Define and maintain Service Level Objectives (SLOs) for critical trading services

Technical Leadership

• Partner with development teams on system design, capacity planning, and architectural reviews
• Provide technical guidance and hands‑on support to help development teams transition their applications from traditional deployment models to containerised infrastructure.
• Lead incident response efforts and conduct blameless postmortems

Infrastructure & Messaging

• Optimise message‑driven systems by ensuring reliable event streaming and asynchronous communication patterns
• Scale systems through automation and infrastructure‑as‑code practices

Software Development Fundamentals

• Write clean, maintainable code following industry best practices and design patterns
• Apply software engineering best practices, including version control, code reviews, and testing strategies

Experience Requirements

• Strong Java development experience with a deep understanding of JVM internals and performance tuning
• Hands‑on expertise with message brokers (ActiveMQ, Kafka or similar) in production environments
• Proven experience with containerisation and orchestration (Nomad would be an advantage)
• Practical knowledge of OpenTelemetry and distributed tracing concepts
• Solid understanding of reliability patterns, circuit breakers, and fault tolerance
• Experience in high‑throughput, low‑latency production environments
• Track record of improving system reliability and performance at scale
• Experience with continuous delivery and DevOps practices
• Strong troubleshooting skills in distributed systems
• Background in financial services or similar mission‑critical domains (preferred)

Core Competencies

• Systems‑thinking approach to problem‑solving
• Strong communication skills for cross‑team collaboration
• Ability to balance development and operational responsibilities
• Passion for automation and eliminating toil

About IG Group

Hello, we're IG Group. We are an FTSE250 FinTech company who run mobile, web and desktop platforms that help our clients trade stocks & shares, leveraged products, Futures & Options and Crypto.

We are ambitious. Over 340,000 people already use our platforms. We're global with offices in 18 countries and products in 16 regions. We're hungry to move faster, ship better product for our customers and grow our user base. We believe in high autonomy, and we want people who are looking to do things differently in order to create better experiences for our customers. We work in cross‑functional teams and are laser‑focused on increasing the number of active clients we serve to drive sustainable growth.

We try to take a thoughtful approach to our ways of working as a company. We follow a hybrid working model with 3 days in the office - which we think balances the need to collaborate effectively and connect with each other. When it comes to how we deliver, there are 5 things we want everyone to do to drive high performance, better learning and career satisfaction:

1. Lead and Inspire: Drives trust, alignment, and enthusiasm
2. Think Big: Focus on the problems that most impact commercial outcomes
3. Champion the client: Understand and prioritise client's needs
4. Deliver at pace: Push for fast, sustainable growth;
5. Raise the bar: Take ownership, be accountable and share feedback

Commitments to Diversity & Inclusion

We believe that diversity is vital to success, it fuels creativity, drives innovation and sets us up for global success. We're committed to building teams with a variety of perspectives and skills to help us realise our vision and strategy, that's why we encourage applications from people with diverse backgrounds and experiences to join us on this journey. Learn more about our D&I approach here.

Benefits & Perks

• Competitive salary
• Flexible Benefits Package on top of your salary (12%)
• Private medical cover for you and your family
• Life insurance
• Contribution to gym memberships
• 25 Days holiday, with 1 additional day off to celebrate your Birthday & 2 additional days off a year for voluntary work (28 in total)
• The option to buy or sell holiday days.
• Unlimited access to the LinkedIn Learning Platform
• A comprehensive global and local onboarding process
• Employee‑led LGBTQ+, Women's, Black and Parents & Carers networks with an annual budget for organising events & projects that foster an open, diverse and inclusive culture
• Option to participate and create ESG initiatives based on IG Brighter Future Fund
• Enhanced primary (maternity), secondary (paternity), and shared parental pay and leave, as well as a range of support and benefits for parents

Learn more about the Perks here!