Software Engineer – AI Developer Tools

Optiver is looking for a Software Engineer to join our Developer Excellence team in London, focused on scaling the impact of AI-assisted development across the organization. This is a new and exciting role for someone who’s not just interested in integrating the latest tools — but in shaping what AI-assisted development should look like inside a modern technology firm.

We’re looking for a strong engineer with experience building developer-facing AI tools, a clear vision for the future of AI in software engineering, and the ambition to help drive that journey at Optiver. You’ll join a growing global team on a mission to improve every part of the developer experience at Optiver.

What you’ll do:

• Lead the exploration and adoption of AI-assisted development tools across Optiver — from chat-based development agents to tools that accelerate writing, reviewing, and understanding code
• Design and build internal AI-powered developer tools that integrate seamlessly into existing workflows, improving speed, confidence, and clarity for engineers
• Investigate opportunities to use techniques like fine-tuning and retrieval-augmented generation to create models tailored to Optiver by leveraging internal data and infrastructure
• Build and maintain integrations between AI tools and Optiver’s internal platforms, ensuring they’re context-rich and deeply useful
• Develop and track metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of AI tools and guide investment in the most impactful solutions
• Define best practices for safe, observable, and responsible usage of AI in development — partnering with security, compliance, and infrastructure teams along the way
• Stay up to date with developments in the fast-moving AI ecosystem, and help translate emerging capabilities into practical, well-scoped opportunities for the firm
• Work directly with engineers to validate ideas, gather feedback, and iterate on AI tools that solve real development problems

What you'll get

You’ll join a culture of collaboration and excellence, where you’ll be surrounded by curious thinkers and creative problem solvers. Motivated by a passion for continuous improvement, you’ll thrive in a supportive, high-performing environment alongside talented colleagues, working collectively to tackle the toughest problems in the financial markets.

In addition, you’ll receive:

• A competitive remuneration package, including a performance-based bonus structure
• 27 paid vacation days plus all UK public holidays
• Daily breakfast and lunch, along with support on commuting expenses
• Private medical insurance, pension scheme, and ClassPass fitness membership
• Training and continuous learning opportunities, including access to conferences and tech events
• International transfer opportunities for global career growth

Who you are:

• Have strong engineering instincts and a deep understanding of computer science fundamentals
• Experienced writing software in Python with a proven ability to deliver scalable, reliable, high-quality code, and experience across other languages like C++ and C#
• Hold a deep understanding of development workflows and the creativity to enhance them with AI
• Experienced in building and integrating AI-powered tools for software development
• Has hands-on experience applying LLMs in production or prototyping settings, with a clear understanding of their trade-offs
• Experienced in applying techniques such as prompt engineering, embeddings, and fine-tuning to tailor LLM behavior for developer-facing use cases
• Use data to drive decisions, with a solid grasp of developer productivity metrics and how to measure impact in complex system
• Understands the trade-offs between using third-party APIs, open-source models, or building internal capabilities - and can make decisions based on reliability, cost, and developer value

Who we are:

At Optiver, our mission is to constantly improve the market by injecting liquidity, providing accurate pricing, increasing transparency and acting as a stabilizing force no matter the market conditions. With a focus on continuous improvement, we participate in the safeguarding of healthy and efficient markets for everyone who participates. We tackle the toughest problems, challenge the status quo, and always aim for excellence. As one of the largest market making institutions, we are a trusted partner of 70+ exchanges across the globe.

Diversity statement:

Optiver is committed to diversity and inclusion.

Apply directly via the form below. If you have any questions feel free to contact our Recruiter team via recruitment@optiver.com.
Kindly note that we do not require any assistance from third-parties including agencies in the recruitment of this role.