Senior Engineering Manager – Global Trading Infrastructure – C++/Rust – Amsterdam – 250K OTE Possible

Our client is a proprietary trading firm founded and headquartered in Amsterdam. The firm trades options using its own capital, with market making in equity and index options on regulated exchanges as its core activity. Trading decisions are driven by quantitative models, real-time market data and risk controls.

As a Senior Engineering Manager, you will lead two high-performance engineering teams embedded within a fast-moving proprietary trading environment. You will report directly to the Head of Engineering and own both the technical direction and the people development of your teams, which are set to grow significantly.

This is a true player-coach role: roughly half your time is spent on people management, planning and process, the other half on architectural leadership, code reviews and hands-on C++ development. You will be the bridge between demanding trading stakeholders and a tight-knit group of engineers, helping establish structure, standards and a scalable way of working without losing the speed and autonomy that defines the culture.

Your work directly impacts trading performance. You will help ensure systems accurately handle risk, process market data, and respond dynamically to changing market conditions. The organisation is gradually adopting Rust, and FPGA implementation is on the roadmap. They promote a culture of active collaboration, pro-activeness and continuous optimisation.

What You'll Be Leading

One team focuses on building custom Tbricks-based plugins for liquidity providers and market-making infrastructure, interfacing with risk systems and trading strategies.

The other team focuses on order management infrastructure, translation layers between internal systems and external execution venues, data parsing and optimisation, and bare-metal programming. FPGA implementation is on the roadmap.

Both teams are currently small (2 engineers each) and will grow substantially. Hiring, onboarding and developing that talent is a core part of this role.

Key Responsibilities

People & Leadership (approx. 50%)

• Lead, coach and develop engineers across two teams, including performance conversations and improvement plans where needed
• Navigate conflict constructively, between engineers and between engineering and trading stakeholders who move fast and have strong opinions
• Drive hiring as the teams scale, building out a global engineering function
• Drive structured ways of working in an environment transitioning from startup agility to scalable engineering practice
• Host and improve Agile ceremonies: Sprint Planning, Poker Estimation, Retrospectives
• Raise the quality of requirements and create a framework for team alignment

Technical Leadership (approx. 50%)

• Own architectural decisions and technical roadmaps for both teams (approx. 25% of your time)
• Conduct thorough code reviews and set and enforce coding standards (approx. 25% of your time)
• Contribute hands-on C++ development where needed
• Drive system performance improvements and support containerised deployments (Kubernetes)
• Lead the gradual adoption of Rust across the teams

What You'll Need

Location: Based in, or willing to relocate to, Amsterdam (from within Europe). Sponsorship support is available for candidates based in Europe.

Education & Experience:

• Proven experience leading engineering teams, ideally 2 or more teams, with a track record of growing headcount
• Full SDLC experience, comfortable with Agile and sprint planning

Technical Skills:

• C++: Strong, demonstrable professional experience (core requirement)
• Python and/or Rust: Solid experience with a willingness to drive Rust adoption across the teams is a nice to have
• Familiarity with bare-metal and/or FPGA development is a nice to have

Leadership Skills:

• Demonstrated ability to have difficult conversations, giving honest feedback, managing performance and helping people grow
• Experience working different personalities; able to build trust and get the best out of people
• Able to drive structural change in an environment where some resistance is expected, and to bring people along through explanation rather than mandate
• Strong verbal and written English communication skills

Nice to Have:

• Background in low-latency, parallel or distributed systems
• Experience with Tbricks
• Experience with Kubernetes and/or Jenkins
• Embedded and/or networking background
• Experience in HFT or prop trading environments
• WSO2 experience

What's Offered

• The chance to build something real: implement a way of working, shape the engineering culture and help grow a global team from the ground up
• Massive autonomy with high ownership, high trust and high stakes
• Geography expansion, with the potential to help open new office locations
• A culture of continuous improvement, baked into how the team operates every day
• Competitive compensation: base salary from €130K plus bonus, with over €250K OTE achievable for the right candidate
• Relocation support and sponsorship for candidates currently based in Europe
• Hybrid working with up to 40% remote (2 days per week from home)
• 25 holidays

Process

1. HR Interview
2. Conversation with the Head of Engineering and business case
3. Final round