Head of Engineering

Established in 2004, Mercuria is one of the leading integrated energy and commodity trading companies in the world. We bring energy markets together to support the needs of today by trading, structuring finance, and investing into strategic assets, while generating more than $110 billion in turnover.

Our operations span over 50 countries on 5 continents, including all the major energy hubs. We trade physical oil, energy products, environmental products and other commodities from Geneva, London, Singapore, Shanghai, Beijing, Dubai, Houston, Calgary and Greenwich (CT).

We are committed to advancing the transition to a more sustainable, affordable and reliable energy system for tomorrow. Over 50% of our assets are in low carbon & energy transition sectors - providing a strong platform to trade these new markets and support decarbonisation.

In 2023, we established Silvania, a $500 million fund, investing into restoration and protection of nature and biodiversity globally and in support of the Paris Agreement goals & UN 30x30 biodiversity initiative. This new asset class supports nature protection and provides sustainable financial returns.

The role

We are looking for a Head of Engineering to join our dynamic Technology department reporting to the CTO, Business Apps.

This is a senior-level role responsible for overseeing teams of software engineers, and providing leadership, strategic vision and direction for the software engineering organisation. Working in collaboration with their London counterpart, the role oversees the design and implementation of systems within Mercuria and is responsible for championing best practices and ensuring initiatives achieve business outcomes.

The role will require an individual with a software engineering background and a strong architectural appreciation, as well as experience of designing and implementing industry leading solutions within a trading and/or financial services environment.

They should have a track record of scaling software teams in a fast-paced organisation as well as being able to inspire innovation with real world experience of adoption and utilisation of AI frameworks to build LLM-powered applications, ensuring their impact across business units.

The successful candidate will have a good mix of interpersonal skills to be able to interact across IT and our userbase including front office/trading teams, and able to communicate effectively with C-level.

Key responsibilities

• Define and execute the engineering strategy and roadmap aligned with business goals
• Design of internal platforms and services in line with architectural strategy
• Lead, inspire, and develop a high-performing software engineering team
• Ensure requirements are correctly interpreted and offer maximum value
• Actively seek to identify and drive improvements and innovation including use of GenAI
• Represent and promote Mercuria IT, both internally and externally
• Support firm wide initiatives & strategy where required

Technical expertise

• Experience developing enterprise applications
• Strong core Java and/or Python knowledge and development expertise
• Service oriented technologies like REST, JSON, Protobuf, Spring Boot, Drop Wizard
• DevOps best practices using tools like JIRA, JUnit, GitLab, Artifactory, Docker, Kubernetes, Kibana, Prometheus
• Proven experience in designing, deploying, and scaling AI solutions, including leveraging LLMs
• Expertise in AI frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, Hugging Face Transformers, or similar tools.
• Cloud – either AWS or Azure exposure and understanding of how it can be utilised in a hybrid environment
• Data – experience of integrating a data lake using platforms such as Snowflake and/or Databricks
• Event based architecture experience utilizing technologies such as Kafka, MSMQ
• SQL and relational database experience
• Web development using modern frameworks like ReactJS desirable

Non-technical Skills

• Commodities or Financial Services background
• Agile methodology for delivering projects
• Analytical and critical thinking with ability to problem solve complex issues
• Self-motivated and ability to work under pressure
• Fluent English