Experienced software engineer in the finance industry with a background in OTC FX derivatives. Committed to continuous professional development. Seeking to develop career in front-office, with exposure to trading strategies and quantitative finance.

Industrial Experience

Manager, IT Trading

December 2011 - Present

A Bank, London, UK

Front-office pricing/risk software engineer situated on the trading floor solving interesting problems for traders.

Financial Software Developer

January 2009 - November 2011

Bloomberg, London, UK

Developer, project manager and design authority in the FX derivative software group, working on the OVRA risk product and OVML pricing application.

C++ using STL and proprietary libraries, Javascript/GTK for user interfaces.
• Design authority for the UI and import/export service, responsible for vision, change control and project reviews.
• Projects include: support for various exotic instruments, custom portfolio and report views, integration with FPML, options browser, building test frameworks, and major architectural refactors to ease extension and maintenance.
• Resolved critical system failures affecting premium clients against the clock; taking ownership of the situation and system with no previous experience in, with complete timely success.
• Executed technical analysis and estimates for the team's 2011 business plan.
• Management of the team during releases: communication with stakeholders, code and environment control, managing quality assurance and bug resolution, and releasing services and UI.
• Mentor of new engineers - leading, supporting and advising them to success.
• Development on UNIX, writing Python and Bash, designing proprietary database schemas, Git, SVN and CVS. Debugging with dbx.

Software Engineer

October 2008 - January 2009

Gambit Research, London, UK

Developing market data feeds and trade execution interface with brokers for algorithmic trading platform using Python.

• Introduced market data and trading connectivity to a new dealer.
• Extended web platform to handle reconciliation of spurious trading transactions using Django.
• Administration of development and live Linux systems and PostgreSQL databases.
• Conducted in-house technical interviews.

Gap Year

September 2007 - August 2008

Independent backpacking around the world.

Summer Student, Software Development

June 2006 - September 2006

nCipher, Cambridge, UK

Infrastructure intern responsible for constructing OpenBSD 3.9 build platform and porting product (written in C) to it.

Industrial Placement Student

June 2005 - June 2006

LogicaCMG, Newbury, UK

Outsourced to Vodafone's as an Assistant Technical Architect. Authored NMS, SIGTRAN and Core Network system designs. Developed diagnostics tools, UNIX/Cisco administration, and also a data centre engineer.

• Actively solved clients problems; winning two five-figure contracts and led special projects to timely delivery.
• Calculated and presented performance metrics to the client, to provide confidence in the company's service.

Consultant

Dec 2004 - June 2005

Kent IT Clinic, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK (Part-time)

Senior consultant, assisting the Clinic Coordinator in overall project and resource management, and client relationship.

• Member of the Steering Committee, involved in turning the clinic into course modules for subsequent years.
• Ran the new joiners training programme, devising projects, monitoring and reviewing trainee progression.

Technology Operations Director

April 2004 - April 2007

Skylis, Evendrive Systems, Canterbury, UK (Part-time)

Led IT services and consultancy team called Skylis, responsible for all aspects of the operation from set-up to wind down.

• Provided services for organisations across South East England. Online presence in UK, US and Germany.

Partner

March 2002 - Sept 2003

Ionic Hosting Partnership, Winchester, UK (Part-time)

Founded low-cost web host for over 150 websites. Marketing, support and web design. Exited upon starting University.

Primary Education

LSE, London, UK

July 2011

Summer School in Options, Futures and Other Financial Derivatives, Grade B+

• Topics covered include: risk neutral probability, Martingales, Binomial model, Black-Scholes, volatility, local and stochastic volatility models (Heston) and term structure models (Vasicek).

LSE / Peking University, Beijing, China

August 2010

Summer School in Multinational Business Finance, Grade A

• Topics covered include: the history of the international monetary framework, parity conditions, foreign exchange and interest rate derivatives, managing transaction exposure risk, financing strategies and capital budgeting.

LSE / University of London, London, UK

June 2008 - Present

BSc (Hons) Mathematics and Economics (Distance Learning)

• Topics covered so far include: advanced calculus and linear algebra, set theory, probability, regression, sampling distributions, random variables, hypothesis testing, consumer behaviour, market structures, general equilibrium, externalities, factors market, liquid asset and goods markets for open and closed economies.

University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

September 2003 - June 2007

BSc (Hons) Computer Science with a Year in Industry, Upper Second Class

• Awarded a first class result for the final year project; the creation of a localized information publication and retrieval service. Utilised Java ME with JSR 082, Python, ASN.1 PER, XML and Google Maps API.
• Achieved a first class result for placement at LogicaCMG by employer's feedback and report.
• Led a team of thirteen to a first class result for our second year major project, a Java chat server and client.
• Software engineering with Java, Haskell, C, Occam-π, UML and Z.
• Topics include: concurrency, algorithms, computer architecture, logic, operating systems, networks, security, cryptography, graph theory, neural networks, human-computer interaction, and the web.

Peter Symonds College, Winchester, UK

September 2001 - June 2003

Four A-Levels: Computing (B), Mathematics (C), Physics (C), Film Studies (C)

Thornden School, Eastleigh, UK

September 1996 - June 2001

Ten GCSEs grades A-C including Mathematics and English

Additional Experience & Education

Mandarin

May 2011 - Present

School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London, UK

Committee Member

November 2009 - Present

QASL, University of London International Programmes, London, UK

Assistant Instructor

December 2008 - August 2009

University of London Sub Aqua Club, London, UK

Standard Arabic Regular Course, Beginners

July 2008

University of Damascus, Damascus, Syria

Divemaster Trainee

March 2008 - April 2008

Big Blue Diving Resort, Koh Tao, Thailand

STMS Faculty Representative

September 2006 - June 2007

Kent Union, Canterbury, UK

Secretary

September 2006 - May 2007

Archery Club, Kent Union, Canterbury, UK

Officer, Treasurer

October 2004 - June 2007

Computing Society, University of Kent, UK

Awards

• PADI Divemaster and BSAC Assistant Instructor (completed 2008)
• Student Activity Award (Most Committed Student Representative), Kent Union (2006-7)
• Kent Student Certificate for Volunteering Gold, University of Kent/Kent Union (2006-7)

Interests & Achievements

• Competes on the British Fencing circuit reaching 170th nationally for mens' epee.
• Member of the Fabian Society, participating in public policy commissions and authoring articles for society media.
• Trades in the London equity markets, with a 70% return in the first year.