Technical Lead Developer

Who We Are:

AB is a leading global investment management firm that offers high-quality research and diversified investment services to institutional clients, individuals and private clients in major markets around the world. AB employs more than 500 investment professionals with expertise in growth equities, value equities, fixed income securities, blend strategies, and alternative investments, and, through its subsidiaries and joint ventures, operates in more than 20 countries. AB’s research disciplines include fundamental research, quantitative research, economic research and currency forecasting capabilities. Through its integrated global platform, AB is well-positioned to tailor investment solutions for its clients. AB also offers independent research, portfolio strategy and brokerage-related services to institutional investors.

Who You’ll Work With:

Fixed Income Investment Technology (“FIIT”) group builds software that the Fixed Income business of AB uses in performing functions such as Fundamental Research, Quantitative research, Portfolio Management, Order Generation, Trading and Middle office and BackOffice operations. It partners with business to understand their challenges and help them by providing innovative technology solutions. We re-engineer the process where applicable in collaboration with business to help scale their business and be efficient in this dynamic market conditions. Our eco-system consists of multiple sub-systems that receives data from multiple up-stream systems, processes them and then distributes it to internal and external downstream systems. Our proprietary trading applications connect with various ECNs to execute trades in the market for various asset classes. Our modern tech-stack includes Angular, .Net APIs and Azure based Platform as Service features like Event-Hub, Service Bus, Functions, AKS, etc. We also have other vendor products like Minerva and Sentinel, which are used in part to do these functions as well.

What You’ll Do:

We are seeking a Nashville based Technical Lead Developer to join our FIIT team.

The ideal candidate for this role will collaborate with the architecture team and senior members to develop a major functional module that handles Portfolio Management, Order Generation, and Trade Execution for the Fixed Income business. This is a hands-on position where the candidate will spend 70% of their time coding.

As part of this role, you will attend regular meetings with the business to understand their needs and suggest improvements based on the project plan. You will also contribute to the development and enhancement of existing/new systems and mentor less experienced developers in good coding practices. Additionally, you will be responsible for developing best practices/guidelines for the development team, conducting code reviews, and improving the overall application structure. One of the short team goals for role is to assist in build out an automated testing framework for our proprietary execution management system.

Describe the applications and business or enterprise functions the role supports:

In this role, you would be expected to design, implement, test and support new features to enhance our internal Portfolio, Order and Trade Management systems.

The key job responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Gathering business requirements from all stakeholders

• Designing / re-engineering processes

• Writing technical specifications

• Designing database architecture, services including APIs and user interfaces

• Developing code, unit testing and manage DEV/QA environments

• Assist with integration and end-to-end testing

• Establish best practice and review other developers’ code

• Supporting the QA team as they write test cases

• Facilitating User Acceptance Testing

• Launch planning and coordination

• Post-launch maintenance; enhancement prioritization in conjunction with the business; on-going release management

• Analyzing and implementing new data models

• Providing Level 2 application support

• Providing support for ad-hoc data and research requests from the investment team

• Providing support for overnight batch jobs

• Should be able to work with a large team across different locations 

What makes this role unique or interesting (if applicable)?

This is a unique opportunity to learn and create something along with a business group that manages over 270 billion dollars. The FIIT team is highly aligned with our business stakeholders and provides a “high touch” opportunity for the senior developer to interact with our counterparts daily. 

The role also provides exposure to the entire Software Development Life Cycle.  While the developer can draw on resources from other groups as needed, this role affords the opportunity for hands-on experience across the SDLC, including requirements gathering, development, testing and deployment.

What is the professional development value of this role, i.e. what learning and professional growth

does the role offer the candidate?

There is enormous growth opportunity in this role. From a functional point of view, they would be learning how a Fixed Income investment works from front to back including research, managing portfolio, order sizing and trading. From a technical point of view, they will be working with all the latest technology stack and would be given ample opportunities to research and suggest a technology that solves the business problem.

What We’re Looking For:

The ideal candidate should have background in computer science and should have the following skillsets and experience:

• 15+ years of industry experience in coding and building software

• Strong knowledge of core computer science design concepts, algorithms and data structures

• Strong knowledge of object-oriented design patterns

• 10+ years’ experience in application development using .NET/C#

• Proficient in Angular > 14, RxJS, SQL, TypeScript, JavaScript, CSS and HTML

• 5+ years of experience in financial services industry, experience developing order management and trading systems is a plus

• Proficient with Azure cloud technologies like EventHub, Service Bus, AKS and Functions.

• Track record of making significant contributions to large scale, enterprise, multi-layer software projects

• Extensive experience with code repositories like GIT and DevOps processes

• BS / MS in Computer Science, Math, Engineering and/or related experience

• Passionate in programming

• Must be a problem solver and can work independently

• Strong verbal and written communication skills

• A desire to grow their knowledge about the investment implementation lifecycle and various markets

• Familiarity with automated testing frameworks is a plus

• Experience developing in python is a plus

Our employees typically have track records of outstanding professional performance and academic achievement, excellent analytical and financial skills, and strong verbal communication skills.  Candidates should have a strong ability to work in a collaborative environment and to present results to both expert and non-expert audiences. 

Qualifications, Experience, Education:

• A bachelor or master’s degree in computer science, Computer Engineering, or highly related fields

• Pluses:

  • Experience working directly with portfolio managers and traders in helping them use technology solutions to best advantage

Skills:

• Strong, effective communication skills (oral and written), combined with the ability to engage the business in substantive discussion and resolution of issues

• Equally strong analytical skills to map data elements between systems, develop transformation logic, and resolve issues with data integrity.

• Demonstrated ability to meet deadlines

• Excellent interpersonal skills in order to interface with multiple constituent groups with potentially conflicting priorities and perspectives; the ability to support the entire software development and implementation lifecycle; work on multiple streams simultaneously; and guide users through complex application launches. 

Special Knowledge (if applicable):

• Finance knowledge a plus

AB does not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of race, color, religion, creed,  ancestry, national origin, sex, age, disability, marital status, citizenship status, sexual orientation, gender identity, military or veteran status or any other basis that is prohibited by applicable law.  AB’s policies, as well as practices, seek to ensure that employment opportunities are available to all employees and applicants, based solely on job-related criteria.