Platform Engineering Lead - Python/Cloud/Financial Risk - Investment Bank, London

High-impact leadership role within a core platform team delivering infrastructure and services that support financial modelling and risk analytics. The platform underpins high-performance Python applications and distributed systems used by quants and analysts, with strong business backing and a clear mandate to scale.

This is a strategic opportunity to lead near the ground floor of a modern alternative to Legacy financial platforms, with full ownership of technical direction, team structure, and delivery discipline.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead two teams: one focused on DevOps/infrastructure, the other on quant-facing analytical tooling.

• Oversee delivery of Python-based distributed systems and REST APIs for financial risk and analytics.

• Drive cloud-native architecture (Kubernetes, GCP/AWS) and CI/CD pipelines.

• Instil engineering discipline to ensure scalability and prevent platform sprawl.

• Align platform strategy with quant and business needs through close stakeholder engagement.

Essential Skills:

• Strong Python development background.

• Experience building distributed systems and RESTful APIs.

• Cloud-native engineering (GCP or AWS), Kubernetes, DevOps tooling.

• Background in financial systems or risk platforms.

• Proven leadership in finance or analytics tooling environments.

• Ability to translate complex business requirements into technical strategy.

Desirable:

• Front End experience (TypeScript/ReactJS).

• Knowledge of options pricing or financial risk modelling.

• Exposure to large-scale compute or analytical platforms.

• Experience interfacing with quants or leading early-stage platform strategy.

Why This Role:

This is a rare opportunity to lead a platform function with significant influence. You'll guide a team building cutting-edge tooling used by top-tier finance professionals. With strong support from the business and a vision to scale, this role puts you at the heart of innovation in financial risk technology.