Algo Trader

Algorithm Trader - London

Who are you?

You have two passions in your professional life, the financial markets and technology.

Although you enjoyed programming in University, you never wanted to be a programmer. What really interested you was the financial markets and more specifically, Trading.

Which is why you are now sat within the trading team of an investment bank or fund. Being able to anticipate how the markets will react to real world events is a culmination of all the books and papers you’ve read along with the experience gained on the job.

You are bemused why some older traders still rely on excel when you can automate a lot of your repetitive tasks using Python. In fact, despite enjoying the trading aspect you would like to work in an environment where technology is front and centre.

Good news….

We are working with a high frequency trading firm to appoint a trader within one of their larger groups. This role combines all the things you enjoy about trading i.e. reacting to market events and understanding the market dynamics whilst also within an environment more closely aligned with a tech firm.

What does the day to day look like?

This role is responsible for managing and optimising the algorithms developed by the quants within this team. The team trades across almost every exchange so you will gain experience across assert class and venues. You will be the face of the strategy in the market, understanding how the strategy reacts in different market environments and tweaking accordingly to maximise the PNL. The algorithms are written in C++ and rely on a sophisticated low latency platform. If something doesn’t look right, you will be the first person to react and investigate hence why you need to be technically minded. Outside of trading you will be conducting analysis in Python.

What skills / experience do I need then?

A real passion and curiosity for financial markets and the macro economic events that impact them. Ideally you should be already trading, probably within one asset class, ideally on exchange. You should also really enjoy trade execution and appreciate an alpha signal is only profitable if it gets filled. You do need to pretty competent with Python, it’s the main language used for analysis so you will struggle without it. If you can read C++ code that a bonus but not necessary.

I have a notice / non-compete period.

That’s fine if you need to sit out for a while before you join that’s ok.

More questions?

Book a confidential meeting with the link below and I'll be happy to provide more info and answer any questions or send a copy of your cv to s.grainger@gslsearch.com