Head of Execution Technology

Nickel Digital Asset Management is one of Europe’s premier investment firms. We specialise in digital assets and alternative strategies, combining institutional-grade infrastructure with the agility and vision of a cutting-edge fintech firm. Backed by a team of world-class financial professionals, we are shaping the future of multi-strategy fund management with our Diversified Alpha Fund - a pioneering multi-manager vehicle investing across a range of strategies within the global digital asset space.

The Platform

Our in‑house EMS, Nickel Trader, is the one‑stop access point for market data, backtesting, multi‑venue execution and analytics — from post‑trade TCA and P&L to real‑time risk. It is tightly integrated with our risk and portfolio management systems. Execution edge is a core differentiator for our managers.

Role Overview

We are hiring a business‑centred technology leader to own the product and architecture of Nickel Trader and drive execution outcomes  will partner with trading, risk and operations, lead a small engineering team and set the roadmap, standards and venue strategy. You will be hands‑on enough to dive deep, but success is measured in slippage, capacity, reliability and onboarding speed — not lines of code.

What you will own:

• Roadmap & prioritisation:
  Set and communicate a focused roadmap that improves execution quality, capacity and onboarding speed; align sequencing with traders and risk
• Execution algorithms & trader experience:
  Ensure TWAP, VWAP and related schedule/participation algorithms are robust, predictable and easy to use; provide clear parameters, safe defaults and per‑venue tuning where beneficial
• Venue & liquidity management:
  Maintain and improve a venue performance scorecard (fills, rejects, response times, costs) and direct order flow accordingly; review distribution regularly
• Risk & controls:
  Maintain practical pre‑trade checks, throttles, kill‑switches and circuit breakers; ensure operation is clear and fast during market stress
• Reliability & incident management:
  Keep the execution path stable under load and during venue issues; maintain runbooks, disciplined change control and post‑incident follow‑up that drives measurable improvements
• Access & client libraries:
  Oversee REST/Web Socket APIs and language SDKs; ensure documentation and examples enable new teams to place their first live order quickly and safely
• Team leadership & delivery:
  Lead development team; set engineering standards, review key designs and make build‑versus‑buy and budget decisions that reduce operational risk and shorten time‑to‑market

Indicative KPIs

• Ease of use and breadth of algorithms
• Implementation shortfall relative to arrival/benchmark prices (by strategy bucket)
• Fill quality: fill rate; reject/timeout rates; cancel‑to‑fill ratio
• Production stability: incident count and mean time to recovery during peak markets
• Venue mix effectiveness: improvement in scorecard metrics and flow allocation over time
• Capacity headroom: sustained throughput before degradation and orderly behaviour under stress

What you will bring

• 8–12 years in trading technology with deep EMS/OMS and market microstructure experience; at least 3 years owning roadmaps and teams
• Credible hands‑on depth in one of Java (preferred), C++ or Python; comfortable reading code and leading design reviews (coding day‑to‑day is optional)
• Proven track record of implementing execution algorithms, improving implementation shortfall, fill quality and reliability in multi‑venue environments (FIX/REST/Web Socket)
• Experience partnering with traders and risk; clear, concise communication; disciplined incident and governance habits
• Crypto execution exposure is ideal, but systematic FX, equities or derivatives experience is highly relevant

Our offer

• Competitive salary + performance bonus, aligned to execution outcomes
• Meaningful stock options
• 25 days’ annual leave + UK bank holidays; private health insurance
• Mentoring and training budget
• Direct impact: architect and own a mission‑critical system used by trading teams today

Nickel Digital Asset Management is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applications from all qualified candidates.