Charles River Trading and Operations Application Specilaist

We are seeking a highly analytical and solutions-oriented Sr. Trading Systems Application Strategist with expertise in order management system (OMS) trading workflows and interfacing trading applications such as execution management systems (EMS), electronic trading venues, and market data platforms. This role carries meaningful responsibility for pre-trade and post-trade compliance, partnering closely with the compliance team on trade surveillance and monitoring systems to ensure trading activity is properly controlled, flagged, and reviewed across the transaction lifecycle.

The role also requires a strong understanding of full front-to-back workflows, including how trading activity integrates with middle and back office systems for trade capture, confirmation, settlement, and reconciliation.

This role is critical to supporting our trading technology roadmap, day-to-day trading operations, and strategic initiatives across the firm. The ideal candidate will demonstrate strong interpersonal, problem-solving, and critical-thinking skills to analyze, optimize, and support workflows within the transaction lifecycle, ensuring alignment with business objectives and regulatory requirements.

• Serve as a liaison between trading desks, operations, compliance, and IT for all order management system (OMS) and integrated trading application initiatives, applying critical thinking to bridge technical and business needs.
• Analyze and document trading lifecycle workflows, including integrated applications supporting the order management and execution systems, identifying gaps and proposing effective, scalable solutions.
• Maintain a strong working knowledge of full front-to-back workflows, ensuring trading system design and change decisions account for downstream impacts on middle and back office processes such as trade capture, allocation, confirmation/affirmation, settlement, and reconciliation.
• Partner with middle and back office teams to troubleshoot and resolve integration issues between trading systems and downstream systems (e.g., accounting, custody, settlement platforms), ensuring clean, timely straight-through processing (STP).
• Manage the technology backlog for trading systems, supporting grooming, prioritization, and readiness of work items in partnership with the technology team.
• Collaborate with traders, portfolio managers, operations, and compliance teams to gather requirements and translate them into practical, efficient system solutions.
• Lead testing, validation, and deployment of updates and enhancements, proactively identifying potential issues and resolving them before implementation.
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex issues related to trade execution, compliance alerts, and data integration, leveraging strong analytical skills to diagnose root causes.
• Partner with the compliance team on the configuration, tuning, and ongoing administration of pre-trade compliance rules (e.g., restricted lists, concentration limits, guideline checks) within the OMS to prevent trading violations before execution.
• Own the application-side support of post-trade compliance monitoring and trade surveillance systems, ensuring alerts, exception queues, and escalations are properly configured, tested, and functioning as intended.
• Investigate and help remediate compliance alert breaks, false positives, and surveillance exceptions, working with compliance to refine rule logic and reduce noise without compromising coverage.
• Support regulatory and internal audit requests related to trade surveillance and compliance monitoring by ensuring system logs, alert history, and workflow documentation are accurate and retrievable.
• Coordinate with order management system vendors, execution venues, and internal teams for workflow changes, system upgrades, and patches, ensuring minimal disruption and maximum value.
• Partner with the technology team on Agile ceremonies (backlog grooming, sprint planning, and reviews) as the business-side subject matter expert for trading systems.
• Maintain comprehensive…