Market Data Lead

Lead Engineer – Real-Time Options Market Data (OPRA) Location: London Build and lead the next generation of real-time options market data infrastructure. We are working with a leading global multi-strategy hedge fund looking for a hands-on Lead Engineer to take ownership of its real-time options market data platform, including the full OPRA feed. This is a senior engineering opportunity for someone who combines deep technical expertise in high-throughput market data ingestion with a broader understanding of data platforms, historical capture, data quality and downstream consumption. You will play a key role in shaping the architecture, writing critical-path code and building infrastructure that directly supports portfolio managers, quantitative researchers and risk teams. This isn't simply a feed-handler role. You'll own the wider data lifecycle, ensuring options market data is accurate, reliable, scalable and ready for use across the investment platform. The Role

• Own the end-to-end OPRA market data stack, covering feed ingestion, A/B line arbitration, gap detection, recovery, normalisation and distribution.
• Design and develop high-performance systems using C++ or Rust, handling high-volume real-time options data.
• Build robust capture and replay capabilities, historical tick storage and research-ready intraday datasets.
• Own options reference data, including OSI/OCC symbology, series lifecycles, corporate actions and FLEX contracts.
• Drive data quality, monitoring, observability and production reliability across the platform.
• Work closely with portfolio managers and quantitative researchers to deliver data products that meet their needs.
• Set technical direction, lead architectural decisions, review code and mentor engineers, with the opportunity to build and grow the team. What We're Looking For
• Direct OPRA experience: You have built or owned production ingestion of the full OPRA feed, or a comparable high-rate exchange options feed. Experience consuming vendor-normalised data alone will not be sufficient.
• Strong C++ or Rust: Production experience developing high-throughput, performance-critical systems.
• Linux and networking: Experience with UDP multicast, profiling and performance optimisation. Kernel bypass experience is advantageous.
• Options market data expertise: Strong knowledge of options chains, series lifecycles, OSI/OCC symbology, quotes, trades and NBBO.
• Data engineering breadth: Experience with Python and SQL, alongside historical data capture, replay, validation and reconciliation.
• Technical leadership: A track record of designing and owning production systems that other teams depend on, alongside experience leading engineers or the readiness to take on direct reports. Desirable Experience Experience with kdb+, OneTick, ClickHouse, Kafka, Aeron or other high-performance messaging and time-series technologies would be beneficial. Exposure to AWS, Snowflake, Parquet/Iceberg, Airflow and monitoring tools such as Grafana, Prometheus or Datadog is also advantageous. Experience within a hedge fund, market maker or options trading environment would be particularly relevant.