Infrastructure Software Engineer

As an Infrastructure Software Engineer you join our Linux team. You will work close to other experts depending on each project. You'll be challenged to build and operate our highly automated infrastructure and solve problems across every layer of Optiver’s tech stack. 

WHO WE ARE

Optiver is a global market maker with offices in Amsterdam, London, Chicago, Austin, Sydney, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei. Founded 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.

Since its establishment in 2012, our Shanghai office is a rapidly growing participant in the Chinese markets, trading exchange-listed futures, options and equities in China mainland. Our vision is to become the trusted partner in the development of Chinese financial markets. With the culture of a start-up but the backing of a 35+ year-old trading firm, the Optiver Shanghai office is truly unique. Everyone who joins us will help shape the future of our company and its global impact. Get ready: we are only just beginning.

WHAT YOU'LL DO 

There are different teams in the Infrastructure Department working to create a robust and reliable foundation for Optiver's infrastructure platform. 

As our next team member, you can expect to: 

• Participate in the design and implementation of the systems used to manage our infrastructure. Writing mostly Python code,
• We encourage OSS adoption and we contribute to upstream repos,
• This will include modelling, provisioning, configuration management, deployment,
• Split your time between development and operational tasks (80:20). Note: Some members of the team do a bit more operational work, while others are more development-focused. This depends on individual skillsets and preferences,
• You will join a daily rotation schedule where you keep an eye on our dashboards in case of incidents while helping other users in our chat or at your desks. On those days you will also work on small tasks,
• You will join our on-call rotation (this is only including some hours during the day. Not 24/7),

Some examples of day to day tasks: 

• Write and review code with your team,
• Provision servers through our automated deployment pipeline,
• Apply configuration changes to our infrastructure,
• Debug production issues,
• Support Developers and Operations teams,
• Plan and coordinate changes in our infrastructure together with other teams in the department.

Some of the things we are doing right now:

• Deploying a system that describes our infrastructure (this is going to be the source for all the Infrastructure as Code that we do),
• Deploying a image-based server deployment system to achieve minimal provisioning time,
• Automating our network devices provisioning and configuration management using open source software,
• Migrating various scripts to proper Python code including CI/CD,

Some example projects that you could help us with:

• Automate operations to empower other teams to perform critical tasks without our direct evolvement. 
• Review our existing tooling and make it more robust, enabling others to perform their job more efficiently.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO BE SUCESSFUL

Required:

• A strong desire to automate your work with a reluctance to do repetitive tasks but an eagerness to solve problems,
• You think that not all the tools are good for every problem and you can adapt to what the current problem needs,
• You can code in Python or have the propensity to pick it up. If you don't consider yourself a developer, you can do some scripting and work with Linux or networking low levels,
• The ability to manage your time and handle priorities in collaboration with other teams,
• A proactive approach to problem solving,
• Experience with real life infrastructure.

Extra points:

• Experience building Python tools for infrastructure automation,
• High attention to detail coupled with strong communication skills,
• Experience with configuration management (we use Ansible/Puppet but experience with similar tools is considered); We are very interested in Declarative systems,
• Knowledge of virtualization technologies, networking, bare metal server management.

WHAT YOU'LL GET

• The chance to work alongside best-in-class professionals
• Training, mentorship and personal development opportunities
• Daily office breakfast, lunch, snacks etc
• Sponsored gym membership, sports and leisure activities, plus weekly in-house chair massages
• Regular social events, clubs and Friday afternoon drinks

As an intentionally flat organisation, we believe that great ideas and impact can come from everyone. We are passionate about empowering individuals and creating diverse teams that thrive. Every person at Optiver should feel included, valued, and respected, because we believe our best work is done together.

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion is hardwired through every stage of our hiring process. We encourage applications from candidates from all backgrounds, and we welcome requests for reasonable adjustments during the process to ensure that you can best demonstrate your abilities.