Application Engineer

We’re looking for a hands-on Software Engineer to join our Application team and help power our Horizon platform. In this role, you’ll work deep in the system—investigating issues, understanding how the platform behaves end-to-end, and resolving problems across application logic, data flows, and integrations.

You’ll build a strong understanding of our internal systems and workflows, develop working knowledge of the financial and trading domains we operate in, and collaborate closely with other engineering teams to identify root causes and continuously improve reliability and operability. You’ll also work directly with users and clients, translating real-world requirements into well-designed solutions while maintaining performance, stability, and scalability. If you enjoy problem-solving, ownership, and making complex systems run better every day, this role offers plenty of room to make an impact.

Key Responsibilities:

• Work as part of the Application team to support the Horizon platform, operating with increasing independence on investigation and resolution of application issues.
• Design solutions to client issues, providing support to build bespoke features/functionality and resolve complex technical issues related to trading systems.
• Investigate and diagnose application issues by tracing behaviour through application code, data pipelines and underlying libraries, and work with other engineering teams to resolve defects or improve system behaviour.
• Contribute to the monitoring and reliability of the Horizon platform by investigating incidents, analysing logs and metrics, and helping identify areas for improvement in observability and operational tooling.
• Collaborate closely with backend, platform and product teams to reproduce issues, share findings, suggest fixes, and implement changes or patches to improve system reliability.
• Extend existing features with additional functionality as requested by users, collaborating with product to ensure applications perform in line with expectations.
• Follow established processes for incident triage and escalation, and contribute feedback and suggestions to improve how issues are identified, tracked and resolved.
• Contribute to internal documentation, runbooks and operational guides based on recurring issues, investigations and lessons learned.
• Support the use of support and incident data to identify recurring issues and opportunities for improvement.
• Support colleagues during client escalations by providing timely technical analysis and investigation updates.
• Work with databases and data pipelines to understand how data is ingested, processed and surfaced in the application.
• Build small utilities, scripts or reports to support investigation, monitoring and client requests.
• Support operational tasks such as managing integrations, access, credentials and data feeds.

Requirements

• A degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience working with production software systems in an application engineering, backend engineering, or a hands-on technical support role.
• Proficiency in Python, including experience working with web applications built using frameworks such as FastAPI or Django, and familiarity with common data modelling tools (e.g. Pydantic, SQLAlchemy).
• Experience working with relational databases (e.g. MySQL, Postgres).
• Experience investigating issues in production systems using logs, metrics and monitoring tools, and an interest in improving observability and reliability.
• Experience working with one or more cloud providers (e.g. AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Exceptional communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Ability to work under pressure and manage multiple priorities effectively.

Beneficial, but not required:

• Exposure to FX, derivatives, or other financial products, with some domain knowledge in trading systems.
• Experience with financial risk management software or platforms.
• Experience with modern front-end technologies (e.g. TypeScript, React).
• Experience with low-level languages used for back-end (we also use Rust for a number of services).
• Knowledge of AWS computing platforms and services.

Benefits

Validus Risk Management is an independent technology-enabled advisory firm specializing in the management of FX, interest rate and other market risks. We work with institutional investors, fund managers, and portfolio companies to design and implement strategies to measure, manage and monitor financial market risk, using a market-tested combination of specialist consulting services, trade execution and innovation risk technology.

Working at Validus can offer an exciting opportunity for both personal development and professional growth. Share in our mission to become the largest and most respected specialist provider of financial market risk services in the world. Notable benefits include a competitive remuneration package (salary + bonus), retirement plan, private healthcare, regular social events, and financial support towards professional qualifications.

Validus is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.