Technology | Lead Exchange Connectivity Engineer | London

About Flowdesk

At Flowdesk, we are building the infrastructure powering the next era of global finance. As a full-service digital asset trading and technology firm, we provide liquidity solutions, OTC trading, and market infrastructure that connect digital assets to global markets with institutional-grade precision, transparency, and scale. Flowdesk combines expertise from traditional finance, algorithmic trading, and blockchain technology to deliver always-on trading capabilities across the digital asset ecosystem.

Founded in 2020, we are a global team supporting institutions, exchanges, and token issuers to enable a tokenized financial markets ecosystem.

Why join Flowdesk? You'll be joining a company operating at the intersection of finance, technology, and crypto; solving complex market problems, building critical infrastructure, and helping shape how digital assets connect to global liquidity. We move fast, think long term, and work with a strong ownership mindset across engineering, trading, product, operations, and business teams.

Role Description

This is a search for a senior engineer who can lead our exchange connectivity capability end-to-end. The role requires a rigorous operational approach to quality delivery, combined with deep technical and trading expertise. The role requires the ability to lead, make architectural decisions, manage go-live cycles, and debug complex production issues across a broad set of venues. We are looking for an AI-forward developer in this role, who understands the value of building repeatable AI coding workflows to maximise engineering productivity.

Key Responsibilities

• Owning the design, build, and operation of feed handlers across all connected venues.
• Leading connectivity go-lives{{{{:}}}} planning, staging, testing, cutover, and post-launch support.
• Debugging complex production connectivity issues across exchange protocols and internal systems.
• Setting technical standards for how the team approaches exchange integration.
• Mentoring engineers working on connectivity components.
• Contributing to HFT infrastructure where connectivity and execution overlap.
  
  

Requirements

Must have

• Extensive crypto feed handler experience across multiple venues in production at an institutional firm - not experimental or internal-only.
• Deep understanding of market data feed handling, order lifecycle management, and multi-feed aggregation.
• Minimum of 2+ years of solid technical Rust experience, across sync and async code. Demonstrable experience of low-latency Rust development, at the very least 5+ years of C++ experience in a low latency environment.
• Strong understanding of networking protocols down the stack{{{{:}}}} HTTP, WS, TCP/IP
• Understanding of the full go-live cycle{{{{:}}}} from integration and UAT through to production cutover and ongoing support.
• Proven experience leading multiple venue migrations end-to-end, from cutover planning and parallel-run testing through to full decommission of legacy connectivity, including managing rollback procedures and minimising trading disruption during transition.
• Experience managing exchange-driven changes (EDC), upgrade lifecycles, and rapid go-live pressures.
• Experience with AI-first development workflows and AI harness engineering and quality assurance.
• Some leadership experience{{{{:}}}} technical lead, team lead, or similar. This person needs to be able to set direction, not just execute.
  
  

Preferred

• AI-native experience and AI harness engineering - delivered AI code generation workflows in production.
• Experience managing a team or squad of connectivity engineers.
• Experience across both TradFi and crypto connectivity (FIX, ITCH, OUCH, WebSocket, proprietary).
• Experience with ultra-low-latency development (kernel-bypass, zero-copy).
  
  

Person profile

• Curious and autonomous
• Highly motivated and results-driven
• Strong maths and analytical skills
• Ability to successfully manage multiple tasks in a fast-paced collaborative environment
• Professional proficiency in English
  
  

Company Culture & Values

• Take Action & Own the Mission
• Be of Service & Contribute
• Innovate, Create Value, & Be Courageous
• Act with Integrity & Respect
  
  

Recruitment Process

Our process is consistent across all engineering roles and is designed to assess genuine technical depth. Candidates should expect the following stages{{{{:}}}}

• Stage 1{{{{:}}}} First round interview with a member of our Talent Acquisition team (45 mins)
• Stage 2{{{{:}}}} Binance take-home assignment, AI-assisted + online technical screen AI-free.
• Stage 3{{{{:}}}} 30-45 mins with Head of Core Engineering or CTO - assessment of system design, technical experience, discussion of AI output.
• Stage 4{{{{:}}}} Online CoderPad interview with HFT team - Rust focused.
• Stage 5{{{{:}}}} In-person technical interview covering live-coding, data-structure & algorithms round, and background and goals alignment.
• Stage 6{{{{:}}}} Round-Up meeting with Head of Talent Strategy.
  
  

Benefits

Benefits

• International environment (English is the main language)
• 100% health coverage
• Team events and offsites
• Company Pension scheme
• Learning and Development budget