Lead Software Engineer

About Us

Reactive Markets is the 2026 OTC Trading Platform of the Year (Risk.net). Our network handles over $50 billion in daily trading volumes across FX, Equities, and Cryptocurrency, connecting 40+ of the world's leading liquidity providers.

We build trading systems that operate at the edge of what's technically possible — where nanoseconds matter and a dropped message costs real money. Our engineering team is small, senior, and deeply invested in the craft of building cutting edge, reliable, high-performance systems.

The Role

We're looking for a hands-on engineering leader to own our Frontend team — the full-stack application engineers who build the trading platform our clients use. Despite the "frontend" name, this is not a UI-only role. The team works across the whole application stack in TypeScript and Rust, from the trader-facing interfaces down to the services behind them. It's distinct from our Backend team, who own the low-latency C++/Go trading engine.

This is a player-coach role. You'll still write code, review the work that matters, and make the architectural calls that keep the platform fast and maintainable — while owning the team's delivery, its standards, and the development of the engineers in it. The role only works if you can hold two things at once: hands on the platform (credible to your engineers because you understand the work) and off the critical path (leading with depth and raising the team up, so nothing depends on you alone at the keyboard).

You'd be the clear owner of this team — responsibility for it is currently shared informally across our CDO, our Head of Technical Delivery, and the most senior engineer. Part of the job is to take that on, close out the informal cover, and build a team that runs under its own steam. This is not a role where you write code and throw it over a wall: our engineers own the full lifecycle, and when something breaks, you lead the team that investigates and fixes it.

Occasional hours outside the normal working day are required for production releases, scheduled maintenance windows, and Level 3 support during critical incidents. We keep this to a minimum and recognise the commitment — but owning a production trading platform means being there when it matters.

What You'll Work On

• Driving the technical direction of the frontend application stack — architecture, standards, and the trade-offs that keep the platform fast and maintainable
• Hands-on TypeScript and Rust — building and reviewing the most critical or complex work yourself
• Real-time, data-dense trading interfaces across FX, Equities, and Cryptocurrency, and the application services behind them
• Owning code quality across the team through review, design sessions, and the standards you set and enforce
• Developing the engineers on the team — technical craft and the non-coding skills that let people scale
• Shaping the roadmap with the CTO, CDO, Technical Delivery, and Client facing teams, and turning priorities into delivered software
• Ensuring the team owns its Level 3 support, observability, and operational readiness — reliability is not optional

Technical

What We Need:

• Strong full-stack engineering background with deep TypeScript / JavaScript (ES6+) (5+ years, including time leading or setting technical direction for a team)
• Familiarity with React and reactive state management (RX, MobX, or similar)
• Working knowledge of Rust, or the clear appetite and ability to get there — it's part of our stack
• Solid grasp of distributed systems, API design, and real-time data (REST, WebSockets, network protocols) — you understand what it takes to build software that's fast and reliable under load
• Able to make and defend architectural decisions, and explain the trade-offs to engineers and non-technical stakeholders alike
• Experience in financial services or trading technology

How You Lead

You lead by example. You write code, review designs, and hold the team accountable.