Contract Senior Software Engineer (Java or Python) | Inside IR35
Contract length: 6 months (with potential to extend)
Location: London
Working Environment: On-site
You will be joining a private equity firm as a senior software engineer, to work across the following responsibilities:
* Develop and support P&L, accounting, and returns-calculation applications across trading books
* Build and extend our Client Reporting Framework
* Add instrument and asset class coverage in our Trade Repository system
* Manage data exchange with third-party vendors via SFTP and AWS S3
* Use AI coding assistants (Claude, Cursor, GitHub Copilot) to compress delivery timelines while maintaining full code ownership and quality accountability
* Collaborate with quant researchers and traders to translate complex financial requirements into auditable, production-grade code
* Provide production support, working with Platform and SRE teams as needed
Key Requirements:
Technical:
* 8+ years commercial experience in Python or Java across the full development lifecycle
* 5+ years in financial services (buy-side strongly preferred)
* Solid relational database skills; MS SQL Server a strong plus
* Snowflake experience required
* Familiarity with AWS (S3, Lambda, EC2, Glue or similar)
* Proficiency with Git, CI/CD pipelines, and observability tooling (e.g. Datadog)
AI & Tooling:
* Proven, hands-on experience shipping production code using AI coding assistants such as Claude, Cursor, or GitHub Copilot
* Demonstrable examples where AI tooling reduced delivery time by 2x or more on a meaningful task
* Strong prompt engineering skills and the ability to critically evaluate AI-generated code for correctness, security, and financial accuracy
Desirable, but no essential:
* Experience with Apache Airflow or similar workflow schedulers
* REST or GraphQL API design experience
* Knowledge of fixed income, FX, or derivatives products and associated P&L/risk methodologies