Valuations Specialist

We are looking for a senior Valuations Control Specialist to join our Finance and Middle Officefunction in London and help build Optiver's independent valuation and pricing control capabilityfor OTC with an initial focus on exotic derivatives.

This is a newly created, greenfield role sitting at the intersection of Finance and Middle Office.

You will be the firm's primary technical authority on independent price verification (IPV) and valuation methodology for OTC exotic derivatives — defining standards, building infrastructure,and establishing controls as the OTC book scales. You will work closely with Trading, Quant Research, Pricing, Risk, Technology, Legal and Finance, both in London and globally.

The ideal candidate will bring deep valuations control experience from a financial marketsenvironment, with hands‑on expertise in exotic and structured OTC derivatives. This is an execution-focused role suited to someone who enjoys working close to the business, buildingrobust controls from the ground up, improving processes, and ensuring valuation outcomes are defensible, consistent and audit‑ready.

As the OTC business grows, we are also developing the technology and data infrastructure needed to support independent valuation at greater scale. This role will provide practical valuations input into that process — helping define requirements for pricing workflows, market data, IPV automation, controls, reporting and system integration from a day‑to‑day operational perspective.

• Own and manage IPV for OTC exotic equity derivatives, including structured notes, cap/floor products, barrier and digital options, autocallables and other bespoke payoffs.
• Lead the development, validation and enhancement of IPV methodologies, in close collaboration with the OTC trading desk.
• Design and implement a globally consistent valuation approach for OTC instruments, covering operating model (ownership and validation), valuation methodology, fair value hierarchy and XVA impacts. The design should focus on building a systematic and automated approach to IPV and model validation, limiting manual workflows.
• Define and implement prudential and fair valuation adjustments — including barrier shifts, bid/offer vs mid pricing, reserve methodologies and valuation uncertainty — consistent with market practice and applicable accounting standards.
• Leverage on internal and external resources to source, validate and maintain independent market data used for valuation and IPV.
• Own Optiver's external market-data and consensus‑pricing relationships for OTC valuation — including Bloomberg, IHS Markit / Totem, ICE and comparable vendors — covering data sourcing, quality challenge, coverage gaps, and vendor evaluation as the OTC book scales.
• Work to develop a P&L attribution framework for Level 3 valuations, defining sensitivities to individual inputs, establishing Day 1 P&L reserve frameworks, and producing outcomes consistent with IFRS 13 levelling standards.
• Lead Optiver's approach to IFRS fair value levelling for Level 3 derivatives, working with colleagues in regional teams and external auditors.
• Define and track valuation KPIs, including IPV coverage, break resolution times, and reserve movements — with a focus on building Optiver‑native frameworks rather than importing bank‑style approaches.
• Support new product and new trade onboarding, including pricing model verification, market data configuration and sign‑off of initial valuations.
• Partner with functions across the OTC trade lifecycle — Middle Office, Operations, Risk, Legal, Compliance, Tax and Finance — to embed valuation controls into confirmation, collateral, reporting and financial‑close workflows, and to align IPV outputs with downstream consumers.

• 8+ years' experience in valuations control, product control or quantitative finance, with a focus on OTC derivatives — structured products, exotics, or comparable complexity.
• Deep technical understanding of exotic option pricing: pricing models, calibration methods, Greeks attribution, hedging frameworks and the risk sensitivity of model‑dependent payoffs.
• Hands‑on IPV…