Trade Finance Lead

Astek Middle East; Al Khobar; On-site; SAR 350,000 - 550,000; Full time

Job summary

Astek Middle East is seeking an experienced Trade Finance Systems Lead to drive delivery, development, implementation and ongoing support of financial applications in the banking sector.

The role combines platform expertise with problem solving, lifecycle management and collaboration across business, IT, and external partners to ensure high availability, security and performance of critical systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, IT, Information Systems or related discipline, or equivalent experience.
• Minimum 3 years of relevant cash-equity experience.
• Strong technical background in financial applications and trading platforms.

Responsibilities

• Lead requirements gathering, analysis, solution design, development and maintenance of financial applications.
• Manage lifecycle from delivery to production support, ensuring performance and availability.
• Lead second-level application support including incident investigation and root-cause analysis.
• Coordinate testing, defect resolution, and deployments within timelines.
• Collaborate with business, IT, QA, infrastructure, and partners.
• Provide technical direction on design, development, integration and implementation.
• Review technical deliverables and guide development, testing and deployment.
• Ensure changes comply with controls, PCI-DSS and security standards.
• Coordinate infra and capacity planning for stability and performance.
• Support regulatory compliance and knowledge transfer.
• Participate in out-of-hours support and deployments as needed.

Skills

Cash-equity knowledge

Trading platforms

Low-latency design

Problem solving

Independent work

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science / IT / Information Systems

Tools

Eximbills

eTrade

ServiceNow

Version control

Job description

We are seeking an experienced Trade Finance Systems Lead to drive the delivery, development, implementation and ongoing support of financial applications within a banking environment.

This role combines financial-platform expertise with hands‑on technical problem‑solving, application lifecycle management and collaboration across business, IT, infrastructure, QA and external technology partners.

The successful candidate will help ensure the reliability, performance, security and continuous improvement of critical financial applications while supporting business requirements and regulatory standards.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead requirements gathering, analysis, solution design, development, implementation and maintenance of financial applications.
• Manage the application lifecycle from delivery through production support, ensuring platform performance, availability and continuous optimization.
• Lead second-level application support, including incident investigation, root‑cause analysis, troubleshooting, resolution and vendor escalation.
• Coordinate application testing, defect resolution, system enhancements and deployments within agreed timelines.
• Collaborate with business and operations teams, QA, IT support, infrastructure, systems integration teams, vendors and implementation partners.
• Provide technical direction on application design, development, integration and implementation.
• Review technical deliverables and guide teams through development, testing and deployment activities.
• Ensure application changes comply with internal controls, audit requirements, security standards and PCI-DSS requirements.
• Coordinate infrastructure and capacity requirements to maintain application stability, performance and availability.
• Support technical certification, regulatory compliance, knowledge transfer and team development.
• Participate in planned or urgent out‑of‑hours support and system deployments when required.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Information Systems or a related discipline, or equivalent relevant experience.
• Minimum 3 years of relevant experience in the cash-equity industry.
• Strong technical background in financial applications, trading platforms or Trade Finance systems.
• Hands‑on experience with platforms such as Eximbills and eTrade is highly relevant.
• Good knowledge of Java, .NET, JavaScript, Unix scripting, Oracle SQL and Microsoft SQL Server.
• Understanding of application architecture and design patterns for low-latency, high-performance applications, including JVM internals and tuning.
• Experience with application troubleshooting, problem-solving and root-cause analysis.
• Knowledge of service-management tools such as ServiceNow.
• Exposure to version-control software and DevOps tools across development and delivery is an advantage.
• Knowledge of PCI-DSS requirements and relevant security practices.
• Familiarity with Middle Eastern and Saudi Arabian financial markets and equity-market operations.
• Strong English communication skills, analytical thinking and the ability to work independently under pressure.

What success looks like

• Reliable, secure and fit-for-purpose financial applications.
• Effective incident resolution and timely delivery of application changes.
• Continuous improvement in platform performance and operational efficiency.
• Strong coordination between business stakeholders, technical teams and external vendors.