Job Type: Full-Time
Pay Range:$120,000.00 - $225,000.00
Target Start Date: ASAP
Location: Needham, MA
About the Opportunity:
Our client, a leader in the Asset Management space, is seeking a senior-level Principal Hedge Fund Technology professional to play a critical role in the design, development, and delivery of strategic technology initiatives supporting the firm’s hedge funds business.
This role operates as a senior technical leader and software architect, functioning as a developer lead and player/coach. You will be accountable for driving complex initiatives to completion, setting technical direction, and ensuring the delivery of robust, high-quality platforms that meet the needs of investors and investment teams. This includes evolving core platforms, decomposing tightly coupled systems, and building scalable, resilient foundations to support future growth. This is a high-impact role that requires a seasoned technologist with strong architectural judgment, deep financial business domain understanding, and a proven ability to operate effectively in business-critical production environments.
Key Responsibilities & Deliverables:
This role is focused on the successful completion of specific tasks and deliverables. Your responsibilities will include:
- Act as a hands-on software architect and senior technical authority within the Hedge Fund Technology team, supporting real-time P&L platforms, investor-facing analytics, and broader hedge fund tooling.
- Define, document, and enforce formal architecture standards across Hedge Fund Technology systems, ensuring consistency, scalability, and long-term sustainability.
- Lead architectural efforts to decompose and modernize existing platforms, enabling clearer ownership boundaries, improved performance, and faster delivery of new capabilities.
- Design and implement high-performance, distributed systems with a strong focus on latency, throughput, resilience, and fault tolerance.
- Lead delivery of strategic hedge fund initiatives from design through production, remaining directly engaged in implementation and critical technical decisions.
- Operate as a developer lead / player-coach, providing technical guidance through design reviews, code reviews, and mentoring to elevate engineering quality across the team.
- Establish and champion strong SDLC practices, including design governance, testing strategies, deployment standards, and production guardrails.
- Evaluate and adopt AI-assisted development approaches to improve productivity, code quality, and delivery efficiency, while aligning with firm standards and governance.
- Develop a deep understanding of hedge fund investment workflows, P&L construction, data flows, and investor analytics requirements, translating these into robust technical solutions.
We are looking for someone with a proven track record of successful contract engagements. The ideal candidate will have:
- 10+ years of experience designing, building, and supporting complex, business-critical software systems.
- Strong hands-on experience with Java and Python, including developing and operating production services.
- Deep expertise in distributed system architecture, performance tuning, and scalability.
- Experience with streaming and messaging technologies such as Kafka and/or JMS.
- Practical experience with cloud infrastructure, preferably AWS.
- Familiarity with AI-assisted software development tools and workflows (e.g., Claude, Copilot), and the ability to apply them effectively while maintaining strong engineering and SDLC discipline. Candidates must be prepared to discuss and explain something they have built using Java/Python and an AI tool.
- Demonstrated experience in financial services, with exposure to hedge fund platforms, P&L systems, or investor-facing tooling strongly preferred.
- Experience modernizing or decomposing legacy platforms into more modular, service-oriented architectures.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Finance, or a related field is highly desired.
- Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills with strong attention to detail.
- Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, business-critical hedge fund environment.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical concepts to investors and investment teams.
- High sense of ownership and accountability for delivery and platform quality.
- Strategic mindset combined with a pragmatic, execution-focused approach.
