Engineer, Custody Engineering (Java, Backend)

Location: Hong Kong

Time Type: Full time

Job Description

About Bullish

Bullish is an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. These include: Bullish Exchange – a regulated and institutionally focused digital assets spot and derivatives exchange, integrating a high-performance central limit order book matching engine with automated market making to provide deep and predictable liquidity. Bullish Exchange is regulated in Germany, Hong Kong, and Gibraltar. CoinDesk Indices – a collection of tradable proprietary and single-asset benchmarks and indices that track the performance of digital assets for global institutions in the digital assets and traditional finance industries. CoinDesk Data - a broad suite of digital assets market data and analytics, providing real-time insights into prices, trends, and market dynamics. CoinDesk Insights – a digital asset media and events provider and operator of Coindesk.com, a digital media platform that covers news and insights about digital assets, the underlying markets, policy, and blockchain technology.

Reports to:

Engineering Organization & Culture

At Bullish, we are engineering the institutional standard for the digital asset industry. Our mission is to build a platform centered on security and compliance, requiring a commitment to technical excellence that extends beyond simply delivering code. As a global organization, we set a high bar for those driven to do their best work alongside world-class peers.

We value engineers who treat development as a craft and own the outcome from concept to deployment. We expect our teams to bring structure to ambiguity and shape the frameworks that support our global organization. We refuse to compromise on quality and seek problem solvers who thrive on high-impact technical challenges.

The Team: Custody Engineering

The Custody Engineering Team builds the critical systems that safeguard user assets, architecting secure and compliant infrastructure for the entire lifecycle of funds. Our technical scope is broad, spanning blockchain development, smart contracts, oracles, and the full-stack systems that power them. We operate with a high degree of autonomy and ownership over mission-critical infrastructure, bridging the gap between cutting-edge blockchain technology and institutional-grade stability.

What You’ll Do

• Integrate systems into a unified platform, maintaining data integrity and reliable communication between internal modules and external services

• Design and develop core platform Java services and APIs, with emphasis on correctness, high availability, performance, and scalability

• Write clean, well-documented, and testable code. Set standards through code reviews and advocate for consistent engineering practices

• Debug and resolve issues in distributed systems, using health checks, monitoring, and logging to identify and eliminate bottlenecks

• Partner with product managers and designers to translate product requirements into technical specifications

What You’ll Bring

• 4+ years of software engineering experience delivering production-grade systems in high-stakes environments under tight deadlines

• Expert-level proficiency in Java and microservice frameworks, with thorough knowledge of the JDK

• Experience with microservices architectures, RESTful APIs, and messaging systems (e.g., Kafka)

• A security-first mindset with a track record of building fault-tolerant systems and advanced testing frameworks, and supporting them in production

• An ability to communicate technical concepts clearly, both verbally and in writing, to technical and non-technical stakeholders across global teams

• A strong desire to take responsibility and own solutions end-to-end

Nice To Haves

• Experience in digital assets, blockchain, or traditional financial services

• Knowledge of application network security best practices

• Experience using AI tools to accelerate development workflows

• Experience with cloud providers, specifically Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

• Front-end experience with React

Bullish is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are fast evolving and striving towards being a globally-diverse community. With integrity at our core, our success is driven by a talented team of individuals and the different perspectives they are encouraged to bring to work every day.