Head of Engineering

Head of Engineering Location: London/Remote Salary: £90,000 – £120,000+ base + Disc Bonus + equity Type: Permanent Posted by: Carson Harris Associates

The opportunity

We are retained by a well-backed deep tech venture operating at the intersection of advanced computational science and institutional financial services. Funded by two major institutional investors (a global technology business and a leading international bank), they have built a live trading algorithm in institutional use and are developing a marketplace platform alongside it.

This is a senior permanent hire into the founding team, with a clear path to CTO for the right person over time.

The role

A senior engineering leadership role combining hands-on delivery with architectural ownership and upward communication. You will set the technical direction across two product lines, assess and evolve the existing cloud infrastructure, communicate technology strategy to a non-engineering founding team, and build the engineering function beneath you over time. You will also be writing production code from day one.

What you will own

• Architectural direction across a live institutional trading algorithm and a growing marketplace platform
• Assessment and optimisation of the inherited cloud environment
• Hands-on engineering across both product lines
• Technology strategy and roadmap communication to the CEO, COO and CSO
• Team building as headcount grows

What we are looking for

Versatility. Comfort across domains, stacks and problem types matters more than specialism in any single one. A career spanning multiple industries and engineering contexts is a strength here.

Cloud architecture, platform agnostic. Strong architectural judgement across hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP) and ideally exposure to specialist or newer cloud providers. The current environment is AWS-based; the expectation is platform-agnostic thinking, not AWS depth.

Language depth, principles-based. The stack touches Python, Java and C++. We are looking for principled engineering understanding across these languages, the ability to reason about trade-offs and migration, rather than syntax fluency in any one. Exposure to Rust or Go is also welcome.

Financial messaging protocols. FIX protocol experience is highly valued. MetaTrader (MT4/MT5) and other institutional messaging protocols are a plus.

Domain experience. Financial services, SaaS or quantum/deep tech; any one of the three is sufficient; two or more is preferred.

Communication. The ability to articulate technology strategy, architecture and design clearly to a non-engineering audience. This is a filter, not a preference.

Hands-on appetite. Production coding from day one.

Your background

You are likely to have held one or more of the following: founding engineer, first engineer, Head of Engineering, VP Engineering or early-stage CTO at a company of fewer than 100 people. You have built engineering teams from scratch, made architectural decisions under resource constraints, and owned production systems that institutional or enterprise clients depend on.

The technology

Current environment: AWS, Kubernetes. Languages in and around the stack: Python, Java, C++. The expectation is to assess, question and evolve what there is; cloud-agnostic architectural judgement matters more than exact stack match.

Compensation

• £90,000 – £120,000+ base and discretionary bonus, with flexibility for exceptional candidates
• Earned and metric-based equity, unlocked over time against agreed milestones
• Path to CTO as the engineering function scales

Process

Initial conversation with Carson Harris Associates, followed by a meeting with the founding team, a technical conversation, and offer.

All applications are treated in strict confidence. The company name will not be disclosed until candidates have been introduced and confirmed mutual interest.