Senior Software Engineer - Distributed Systems

Who are we?

Smarkets: Predicting the Future of Betting

Smarkets runs one of the world’s most sophisticated prediction markets, handling over £29 billion in volume since 2010 and engaging 200,000+ traders globally. We’re a technology company that happens to revolutionise betting - from sports to political markets, to delivering the sharpest prices and the fairest odds.

Our stack is designed for scale, reliability, and speed: Linux, Kafka, Postgres, Kubernetes, with Python 3, C++17, and React powering our platform. We build infrastructure that institutions trust while keeping trading accessible to everyone. Our edge? We’ve thrived through every market cycle, competitor, and industry revolution.

At the heart of our success are our people. We create a high-performance environment where exceptional talent can thrive, blending deep business experience with a commercial mindset to drive strategic growth.

If you’re ready to help shape the future of prediction markets with cutting-edge technology and a customer-first philosophy, Smarkets is where you belong.

The Role

As a Senior Software Engineer in our Engineering organisation, you are leading a team of software engineers who build, manage, and maintain the services for Smarkets' core exchange functionalities that power our main products Exchange and SBK. You are here to help organize the direction of your team, guide their career growth, and ensure that we’re building the right stack to power the future of our products. You will be responsible for leveraging your team to ensure that our services are responsive, scalable, and performant.

Ultimately, you will be working alongside your team of engineers, engineering managers, and product managers, to drive the complex technical projects that help deliver the Smarkets product roadmap.

The successful candidate will initially take over technical leadership of the team and will transition to a tech lead manager position later.

The Team

We design, develop, deploy and operate the real-time distributed exchange systems that run 24/7 all year long. Our responsibilities include order matching, pricing feed, activity journaling, settlements, risk management and dissemination of market data. We care a lot about reliability, fault tolerance, throughput, and latency. Our high availability requirements dictate emphasis on testability and reproducibility alongside monitoring and alerting.

Our tech stack includes Rust (low-latency distributed services), Python (property based testing and scripting) and parts written in C++ and Erlang which are gradually decommissioned. We use Postgres as our main DBMS technology and Apache Kafka for queuing. Our CI is based on Nix and we ship daily to production.

You will be joining the team in a pivotal moment as we are transitioning from a monolithic architecture of our core exchange infrastructure to horizontally scalable architecture which can handle 10'000+ orders per second.

In details, you will:

• Engineer and optimise exchange solutions, focusing on but not limited to scalability, low latency, reliability, monitoring, security and automation

• Drive sprint planning, including proper scoping of tasks, and execution of the roadmap delivery goals, working alongside our Product Management function

• Set the standard for quality engineering, including improving our engineering processes, to keep our level of excellence high

• Collaborate with other leads and engineering managers, and other stakeholders in the implementation and future development of product roadmap

• Be proactive during incident management with hands-on troubleshooting

• Be the champion of the stack by demonstrating first hand how to implement functionalities in the right way, with an eye to the horizon and your mind on the present

• Ensure the career growth of the engineers in your team as they advance in seniority

• Represent the team in cross-functional meetings and internal events

• Articulate the company vision and strategy to the team; the “why”, the business case, context, benefits any constraints etc

We’d love to talk if you have:

• Previous experience leading and delivering projects in an IC capacity

• Proven leadership skills, and interest in building and managing technical teams

• 6-8 plus years’ experience in designing, developing, and implementing distributed systems

• Can demonstrate deep knowledge in running services in cloud microservice environments and hands-on experience with Kubernetes

• Familiarity with AWS cloud

• Familiarity with observability principles and tools (Grafana, Prometheus, Sentry Elastic-search, Jaeger)

• Excellent planning and communications skills and able to lead conversations with development and product teams

Preferred Skills and Experience

• 6-8+ years of experience building services for low-latency and high-scale products

• 5+ years of experience working with a compiled language - Rust is preferable, but experience with C++ or Go and interest to learn Rust is also acceptable

• Previous experience leading a team technically or directly

• Proven track record working in agile environments

• Demonstrable experience with CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure as code (IaC) using tools like Terraform and Gitlab CI

• Proficiency in utilising AI-driven development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT) to accelerate coding, debugging, and documentation workflows.

Our Values

Our values are at the heart of everything we do - guiding how we work, collaborate, and innovate. They reflect what we expect of ourselves and each other to deliver the best results, while fostering a positive, high-performing environment:

• Push to Win: We set ambitious goals and relentlessly pursue them, always striving for excellence.

• Make Others Better: We lift each other up, share knowledge, and celebrate team success over individual achievement.

• Give a Shit: We care deeply about our work, our users, and the impact we make.

• Be a Pro: We take ownership, act with integrity, and consistently deliver to a high standard.

• Bring the Energy: We bring positivity, curiosity, and enthusiasm to everything we do, inspiring those around us.

Culture Fit: These values define how we succeed as a team. If this isn’t you, this may not be the right place. We hire people who thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative, and ambitious environment.

Perks & Benefits
We offer a competitive salary and benefits package, alongside a dynamic, collaborative environment where your work truly makes an impact and your voice is heard. Our team is diverse, driven, and ambitious - united by a strong work ethic and a hunger to innovate and win.

Our benefits are designed around Health, Wealth,and Development, supporting you both professionally and personally.

These include:

• Stock Options: Vest over 4 years, your success is our success.

• Pension Scheme: Competitive plan via Aviva, with up to 6% matched contributions if you opt in.

• Health Insurance: Comprehensive coverage to keep you and your family healthy.

• Enhanced Parental Leave: Enhanced maternity and paternity leave to support you through life’s most important moments.

• Stay Fuelled: Enjoy fresh, chef-made breakfast and lunch every day, plus a constant supply of fruit, snacks, tea, coffee and soft drinks, because great work starts with great food.

• Cycle-to-Work Scheme: Support for sustainable commuting and staying active.

• Learning & Development: £1,000 annual education budget for courses, conferences, books, or training.

• Holiday: 25 days paid leave + bank holidays, with the option to carry over 5 days.

• Flexible Working: Hybrid model with 3 days in the office and 2 days from home to fit your lifestyle.

• Global Working: Work from anywhere in the world for up to 20 days a year.

• Team Energy: Regular socials, hackathons, and events — because collaboration and fun go hand-in-hand.

What happens next​

We aim to have a simple and speedy hiring process and we want to make sure that we are right for you as much as the other way around.

• CV application review - We will review it as quickly as possible

• Let’s chat - Quick chat with our team about your experience and the role

• Experience and Mindset Chat - with the Hiring Manager

• Technical Interview - Live Coding Pair Programming + System Design Interview

• In Office Interview - LT chat + Lunch with other colleagues in the team

Diversity & Inclusion

We’re an equal opportunities employer and celebrate diversity in all its forms. If you need any adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know — we’re happy to accommodate your needs.