VP, Head of Infrastructure - Sell Side, Capital Markets

Description

The team is hiring a VP and Head of Infrastructure for sell-side capital markets. This leader runs the platforms, networks and teams that power trading on both principal and agency sides.

You set the infrastructure direction and deliver secure, resilient services. Latency-sensitive trading systems must perform predictably under heavy market conditions.

The role calls for hands-on technical judgment, firm governance, broad collaboration across the enterprise, and executive presence to link technology choices to trading results, client trust and risk.

Responsibilities

• Define the infrastructure strategy, including architecture, operating model, investment plan and service levels across data centers, colocation, networks, compute, storage and, where suitable, cloud.
• Reduce latency end to end, from market data arrival through order submission to venue acknowledgment. Target tail latency, jitter, packet loss, throughput and peak-load behavior, not just averages.
• Run exchange and venue connectivity, cross-connects, routing, multicast market data, bandwidth and burst capacity, and time synchronization. Find the causes of congestion and microbursts.
• Make sure principal trading gets what it needs for pricing, quoting, hedging, position visibility and risk limits, and agency trading gets what it needs for client order intake, algo execution, routing, timestamps and complete order and execution records.
• Set recovery objectives, build failover, and test disaster recovery under realistic conditions. Stay ready for market-open incidents, volume spikes and venue outages.
• Set up observability, capacity planning, on-call practice and disciplined incident response. Tell the business promptly what an incident affects and drive fixes for root causes.
• Set the standards and decision rights for architecture, service ownership, change, access, security, vendor risk and operational controls. Report service health, exceptions and risk openly.
• Work with trading desks, product and application engineering, cybersecurity, risk, compliance, operations, finance, procurement and client-facing teams to align priorities and settle trade-offs.
• Hire, coach and keep multidisciplinary teams. Set clear accountability and succession plans, and build a culture of teamwork and sound decisions under pressure.
• Remove recurring problems using performance data, incident reviews, automation and engineering input. Show lasting gains in reliability, recovery, efficiency and cost.
• Lead large platform changes and bring in DevOps, data and AI-enabled engineering where it adds measurable value, with security, governance and responsible-AI controls.
• Present the platform vision at executive level, recommend investments based on evidence, and give steady, credible updates during incidents and periods of change.

Requirements

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in computer science, information technology, software engineering or a related field.
• 15+ years in software, infrastructure or platform engineering, preferably in fintech, sell-side trading, electronic markets or regulated financial services.
• 10+ years leading engineering managers and leaders, covering leadership pipelines, organizational development, budgets, vendor relationships and enterprise delivery commitments.
• A track record leading large, business-critical platforms and modernization programs, including AI-enabled engineering that produced measurable business results.
• Experience raising availability, recovery, performance and operational readiness for high-volume services, with concrete examples of decisions you made during major production incidents.
• Proven ability to set up effective governance and sustain improvements through clear ownership, meaningful metrics and disciplined execution.
• Working knowledge of principal and agency trading workflows, and of how infrastructure failure affects markets, operations and clients differently.
• Solid grasp of market data, FIX, order and execution management systems, exchange and venue connectivity, and pre- and post-trade dependencies.
• Deep expertise in high-performance networks, colocation, low-latency systems and end-to-end performance measurement, including tail latency, jitter, packet loss and peak-load capacity.
• Able to trace problems across network, operating system, application and venue boundaries without weakening security, risk or audit controls.
• Broad knowledge of modern platform architecture, full-stack development, APIs, integration, DevOps, data and AI-enabled engineering, with sound judgment on applying them to trading infrastructure.
• Enterprise leadership: builds strong teams and future leaders, mobilizes people across boundaries, and fosters a healthy engineering and on-call culture.
• Strategic judgment: leads through complexity, turns large transformations into measurable results, and balances speed, resilience, security and cost.
• Stakeholder management: aligns senior stakeholders on one platform vision, explains technical and business trade-offs plainly, and stays credible under pressure.
• Communication: has enough technical depth to drive a refurbishment agenda and to explain it clearly.
• Commercial and client focus: ties infrastructure investment, modernization and responsible innovation to execution capability, client confidence and business value.
• Governance mindset: drives accountability, transparency, risk management, responsible AI and disciplined delivery across technology and operations.
• Success looks like trading teams with predictable, observable and resilient infrastructure. Principal and agency workflows get the performance and controls they need. Incidents are caught and contained quickly, recovery plans work when tested, and repeat issues are removed. Leaders across the company understand service risk and investment priorities, and infrastructure work delivers measurable gains for trading, clients and the business.

Conditions

The salary range for this role is $280,000 to $300,000 USD. Final pay depends on factors such as relevant experience, skills and education.

The role is eligible for a bonus.

The company uses AI-based tools to help recruiters review applications, but people make every hiring decision. Falsified or misrepresented information leads to disqualification.

The company is committed to an inclusive workplace where everyone can bring their authentic self.

Benefits

• Bonus eligible.
• Full benefit details are published on the company's benefits site.