Senior Product Engineer

Trafigura; Greater London; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading commodities trading firm based in Greater London is seeking a Senior Product Engineer to join their Digital Transformation Team. The role involves developing and maintaining robust AI and LLM applications that enhance trading operations. Candidates should have 5-8+ years of experience in backend systems and APIs plus functional frontend skills. This hands-on role offers opportunities for significant impact in optimizing trading processes and integrating advanced technologies across operations.

Qualifications

• 5-8+ years of experience in building production backend systems and APIs.
• Experience with functional frontend skills and building user interfaces when needed.
• Proficiency in modern Python, especially with Pydantic, FastAPI, and asyncio.
• Experience with REST APIs, microservices, and database design including SQL and NoSQL.
• Familiarity with modern AI frameworks and LLM integration.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain Python-based backend services and APIs.
• Build document processing pipelines using LLMs and traditional ML techniques.
• Integrate functional frontend interfaces with backend systems.
• Debug performance issues and optimize system reliability.

Skills

Backend system development

Frontend skills (React, TypeScript)

Python proficiency

REST APIs and microservices

AI frameworks and LLM integration

System reliability and monitoring

Software testing and quality assurance

Software design principles

Cloud engineering (AWS preferred)

Job description

Main Purpose

Trafigura is undergoing an exciting Digital Transformation, developing innovative AI technologies to change the way we work in Commodities Trading. The Document AI team is a key pillar of this initiative, unlocking data-rich proprietary documents to enable high-value process optimisation and data science use cases.

We are seeking a Senior Product Engineer to work closely with our AI team to build the applications and systems that bring AI capabilities to our trading operations. You will be building robust AI/LLM applications that directly impacts trading operations.

This is a hands-on Individual Contributor role.

Required Qualifications

• 5-8+ years of experience building production backend systems and APIs
• Functional frontend skills - comfortable with React, TypeScript, and building user interfaces when needed
• Expert-level modern Python proficiency with deep knowledge of the ecosystem (Pydantic, FastAPI, asyncio, type hints)
• Strong experience with REST APIs, microservices architecture, and database design (SQL, NoSQL)
• Experience with modern AI frameworks (we currently favour Pydantic AI) and LLM integration
• Production experience with monitoring, observability, and system reliability
• Strong fundamentals in software testing, evaluation frameworks, and quality assurance
• In-depth understanding of modern software design principles (microservices, event-driven architectures, domain driven design, object oriented programming, test driven development)
• In-depth understanding of modern software development lifecycle (CI/CD, IaC, Containerisation)
• Practical experience with cloud engineering (preference for AWS)

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience in Commodities, Fixed Income, Equities, Asset Management is a plus

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain Python-based backend services and APIs
• Build document processing pipelines using LLMs and traditional ML techniques
• Build functional frontend interfaces and integrate them with backend systems
• Debug performance issues, handle edge cases, and optimize system reliability
• Write comprehensive tests and implement monitoring for backend systems
• Rapidly prototype new features, evaluate them, and implement to production
• Participate in code reviews, technical design discussions, and architecture decisions
• Communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders to understand and translate business requirements into production code
• Example projects you might own in the first 6 months include:
  • Define and build agent-user interactions to integrate AI agents into applications that our 5,000+ employees use every day
  • Extend our in-house intelligent document management system with additional AI-powered features with intuitive human-centred UX
  • Integrate our firmwide AI Assistant with internal data sources using MCP

Attributes for success

• Engineering mindset focused on delivering practical solutions that solve real business problems
• Self-directed and comfortable working autonomously with minimal supervision
• Pragmatic approach to technology choices - you pick the right tool for the job rather than chasing trends
• Deep appreciation for SRE principles and mindset for scaling with a small and lean team
• Intellectually curious and desire to work in Applied AI
• Strong desire to help people solve problems

Key Relationships

• You will work closely with the Digital Transformation Team to understand business requirements and rollout production-grade applications to solve them.
• You will support the Data Science & Engineering teams as a primary user segment, providing ad-hoc support and understanding user problems.

Department Overview

The Digital Transformation Team is a joint venture between Trading Technology and the Data Science and Engineering Team, driving Trafigura's AI-powered evolution in commodities trading. As a Centre of Excellence for Agentic AI, we develop scalable applications that impact over 5,000 employees daily, supporting both immediate business needs and broader data science initiatives across Trafigura's global operations

Reporting Structure

You will report directly to the Document AI Lead.

Equal Opportunity Employer

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and take pride in a diverse workforce. We do not discriminate in recruitment, hiring, training, promotion or other employment practices for reasons of race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, marital or veteran status, medical condition or handicap, disability, or any other legally protected status.

Application Language

Please make sure that you submit your CV in English.