Software Engineer – Real-Time Distributed Systems

Acquire Me; Greater London; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Acquire Me in London is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join a growing engineering team focused on real-time data streaming, distributed systems and event-driven applications. The role offers ownership over architecture and delivery in a lean team.

You will work with Java, Rust, Go, Kotlin and other languages, building scalable services that handle high-volume data with low latency, collaborating with researchers and trading teams, and contributing to engineering best practices.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Strong background in backend engineering and distributed systems.
• Experience building real-time, streaming or event-driven applications.

Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable, real-time data streaming and event-driven systems.
• Develop distributed services handling large volumes of data with demanding performance and reliability requirements.
• Solve technical challenges around scalability, concurrency, data processing and system performance.
• Own projects end-to-end, from architecture and design through to production.
• Work closely with engineers, researchers and trading teams to develop solutions to complex business problems.
• Contribute to technical direction and engineering best practices across the team.

Skills

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

Real-time streaming

Concurrency

Performance

Problem solving

Technical curiosity

Tools

Kafka

Flink

Job description

We are working with a leading global systematic investment firm, managing approximately $80 billion in assets, looking to hire Senior Software Engineers into a growing engineering team in London.

The team is focused on building and scaling the firm's real-time data streaming infrastructure and event-driven applications, supporting its research and trading operations.

This is an opportunity to work on complex distributed systems, large volumes of time-sensitive data and challenging engineering problems, within a lean team where engineers have genuine ownership over technical decisions and delivery.

Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable, real-time data streaming and event-driven systems.
• Develop distributed services handling large volumes of data with demanding performance and reliability requirements.
• Solve technical challenges around scalability, concurrency, data processing and system performance.
• Own projects end-to-end, from architecture and design through to production.
• Work closely with engineers, researchers and trading teams to develop solutions to complex business problems.
• Contribute to technical direction and engineering best practices across the team.

Requirements

• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Strong background in backend engineering and distributed systems.
• Experience building real-time, streaming or event-driven applications.
• Good understanding of system design, concurrency, scalability and performance.
• Exposure to technologies such as Kafka, Flink or similar distributed processing frameworks is advantageous.
• Strong problem-solving skills, technical curiosity and a proactive approach to engineering.

No prior financial services experience is required. We are open to engineers from Big Tech, product companies and other technically demanding environments.

Why Consider It?

• Work on complex distributed systems and large-scale, real-time data infrastructure.
• Language-agnostic engineering environment, with a diverse technology stack including Java, Rust, Go, Kotlin and others. Strong engineering fundamentals matter more than experience in any particular language.
• High engineering ownership, with direct influence over architecture and technical decisions.
• Lean, collaborative teams with minimal bureaucracy.
• Direct exposure to researchers and trading teams, with clear visibility of your work's impact.
• Join a well-established, highly profitable firm continuing to invest significantly in technology.
• Highly competitive compensation.