Contract Senior Software Engineer (Java or Python)

Contract Senior Software Engineer (Java or Python) | Inside IR35

Contract length: 6 months (with potential to extend)

Location: London

Working Environment: On-site

You will be joining a private equity firm as a senior software engineer, to work across the following responsibilities:

Develop and support P&L, accounting, and returns-calculation applications across trading books

Build and extend our Client Reporting Framework

Add instrument and asset class coverage in our Trade Repository system

Manage data exchange with third-party vendors via SFTP and AWS S3

Use AI coding assistants (Claude, Cursor, GitHub Copilot) to compress delivery timelines while maintaining full code ownership and quality accountability

Collaborate with quant researchers and traders to translate complex financial requirements into auditable, production-grade code

Provide production support, working with Platform and SRE teams as needed Key Requirements:

Technical:

8+ years commercial experience in Python or Java across the full development lifecycle

5+ years in financial services (buy-side strongly preferred)

Solid relational database skills; MS SQL Server a strong plus

Snowflake experience required

Familiarity with AWS (S3, Lambda, EC2, Glue or similar)

Proficiency with Git, CI/CD pipelines, and observability tooling (e.g. Datadog)AI & Tooling:

Proven, hands-on experience shipping production code using AI coding assistants such as Claude, Cursor, or GitHub Copilot

Demonstrable examples where AI tooling reduced delivery time by 2x or more on a meaningful task

Strong prompt engineering skills and the ability to critically evaluate AI-generated code for correctness, security, and financial accuracyDesirable, but no essential:

Experience with Apache Airflow or similar workflow schedulers

REST or GraphQL API design experience

Knowledge of fixed income, FX, or derivatives products and associated P&L/risk methodologies