Optiver

Optiver is looking for a senior software engineer and experienced leader to head our APAC Production Software Engineering team. In this role, you’ll lead a highly technical group responsible for designing, building, and evolving the systems, workflows, and standards that make up our production management platform — the foundation on which our global trading environment is deployed. Your work will be critical to enabling innovation and operating at scale — safely, reliably, and with maximum velocity.

WHO WE ARE

Optiver is a global market maker founded in Amsterdam, with offices in London, Chicago, Austin, New York, Sydney, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei and Mumbai. Established in 1986, today we are a leading liquidity provider, with close to 2,000 employees in offices around the world, united in our commitment to improve the market through competitive pricing, execution and risk management. By providing liquidity on multiple exchanges across the world in various financial instruments we participate in the safeguarding of healthy and efficient markets. We provide liquidity to financial markets using our own capital, at our own risk, trading a wide range of products: listed derivatives, cash equities, ETFs, bonds and foreign currencies.

Optiver’s Sydney office is one of the primary players within Asian markets, trading a range of products. Established in 1996, we're an active participant on the Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan exchanges, and act as Optiver’s APAC head office.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

As Team Lead, you’ll drive both strategy and execution for our production environment — including its architecture, standards, and the systems that govern how applications are built, deployed, and run. You’ll shape the platform that underpins all production activity, from binary acceptance to deployment workflows and runtime management. You’ll set the team’s direction, mentor engineers, and collaborate with global counterparts to align production practices across regions.

This is a hybrid leadership role: you’ll be accountable for people, architecture, and delivery, while continuing to contribute technically to strategic initiatives. Your key responsibilities will include:

• Leading a high-performing team of Production Software Engineers, including hiring, coaching, and technical development
• Defining and delivering the roadmap for production engineering, in collaboration with stakeholders across development, operations, and infrastructure
• Owning the systems and workflows that govern the production environment — including change validation, deployment, application standards, process management, and environment structure
• Ensuring the production environment evolves to meet business needs — scaling with trading demands while minimizing operational complexity
• Contributing to key codebases and designs, especially in foundational or high-leverage areas
• Partnering with engineering teams in Europe and the US to drive global consistency in production practices and infrastructure

WHO YOU ARE

You’re a systems-minded engineering leader who thrives at the intersection of software, infrastructure, and operations. You’re passionate about enabling fast, safe change — and understand the value of clear standards, scalable workflows, and high-trust automation in a production context.

You must have:

• Extensive experience in software engineering, particularly designing and delivering systems at scale
• A proven track record of leading technical teams and delivering complex infrastructure and/or platform projects
• Deep knowledge of software systems, operating environments, and how distributed applications run in production
• A strong improvement mindset, with the ability to simplify complex systems and reduce operational friction

Beneficial, though not required:

• Proficiency in Python
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, configuration management tools, and modern web frameworks
• Experience working in trading or other high-performance, low-latency environments

WHAT YOU'LL GET

• A performance-based bonus structure unmatched anywhere in the industry. We combine our profits across desks, teams and offices into a global profit pool, fostering a truly collaborative environment.
• The chance to work alongside diverse and intelligent peers in a rewarding environment.
• Training, mentorship and personal development opportunities.
• Daily breakfast, lunch and an in-house barista.
• Gym membership plus weekly in-house chair massages.
• Regular social events, including a company trip every two years.
• Guided relocation, a competitive relocation package and visa sponsorship where necessary.

DIVERSITY STATEMENT

Optiver is committed to diversity and inclusion. We encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds, and welcome requests for reasonable adjustments during the process.

Questions? Get in touch with the recruitment team at careers@optiver.com.au.