Lead Test Developer – Centralised Trading Platform - $20bn Multi-Strategy Hedge Fund - Up to £400k TC

Lead Test Developer – Centralised Trading Platform - $20bn Multi-Strategy Hedge Fund - Up to £400k TC

A leading, technology‐driven global trading firm is seeking a highly technical Test Developer to join its Central Testing Team in London. This group sits at the core of the trading platform, partnering directly with quantitative researchers, software engineers, and infrastructure teams to determine when complex, multi‐asset systems are safe to release into production. You will operate as a senior engineer and effectively the second in command to the London‐based head of testing.

The Firm and Team

The firm is a top‐tier, research‐driven trading organisation where engineering quality and systematic thinking underpin every aspect of the business. Technology is treated as a true differentiator: small, highly capable teams own critical parts of the platform, and rigorous testing is viewed as a first‐class engineering discipline rather than a back‐office function.

The Central Testing Team (currently 10 people) is responsible for sign‐off of the trading platform for production. The team works with all quant desks (credit, rates, equities, emerging markets, etc.), all development teams, and core infrastructure/IT. This hire will be the 11th team member, based in London, and will act as the senior individual contributor and deputy to the team manager.

Role Overview

• Take a leading role in defining what “production‐ready” means for a complex, distributed trading platform.
• Work directly with quants, developers, and infrastructure engineers to understand architecture, failure modes, and business impact.
• Combine deep technical work (tooling, automation, frameworks) with high‐level systems thinking and stakeholder interaction.
• Operate as the manager’s right hand in London, with clear visibility and influence over how the firm tests and evolves its core trading systems.

Key Responsibilities

• Engineer sophisticated test scenarios for new and existing trading workflows, embedding with quant teams to validate new strategies and business capabilities.
• Translate architecture into automation: analyse upcoming changes, identify risks and gaps, and implement tests and tools to address them.
• Lead and support elements of the weekly testing cycle in partnership with offshore teams.
• Design and build internal tools and frameworks that allow quants and developers to run rich, automated test suites themselves, minimising manual intervention.
• Contribute to the testing strategy and technical direction of the team, acting as a senior technical counterpart and second in command to the testing manager.

Technical Profile

This is a highly technical engineering role, seeking:

• Strong software engineering fundamentals, with the ability to reason about complex distributed systems and performance‐sensitive trading workflows.
• Language‐agnostic: the team currently uses C#, Python, and PowerShell, but the focus is on clean design, problem‐solving, and architectural thinking rather than any specific stack.
• Kubernetes is central: the testing team is the only group running all test environments on Kubernetes, while production operates on Windows/physical hardware. You will be expected to work deeply with containerised test environments and orchestration.
• Experience building automation frameworks, test harnesses, or internal developer tools for complex systems.

Background and Experience

• Strong STEM or technical degree (Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or similar).
• Experience in one or more of:
• Technical Operations / Production Engineering
• DevOps / Pipeline / SRE‐style roles
• Test / QA Engineering with a strong emphasis on building automated tooling
• Comfortable operating as a senior individual contributor with high levels of ownership, stakeholder engagement, and visibility.
• Sector background may be buy side, sell side, or non‐finance (e.g. AAA gaming, safety‐critical, or other high‐reliability domains), provided there is demonstrable experience in complex automated testing and tooling.