Who We Are Looking For

Quanteam UK are looking for a Front Office Application & Production Support Analyst to join an APS eSolutions group (Application Production Support - Electronic Solutions), a global team providing services directly to the global FX, Rates, eCommerce and Credit businesses within a Global Markets group.
The team is responsible for the production support and release of solutions providing discreet functionality, driven by the global Rates and Credit business. The systems are used globally, with major server hubs in London, New York, Tokyo and Singapore. The Rates and Credit business has over 150 traders across six centres and is headquartered in London.
The team supports globally the ION platform, in-house pricing applications, algorithmic trading components and straight-through processing (STP) for the Rates and Credit business. The key focus of the role is to provide business-as-usual production support and respond to user enquiries, aligning processes and procedures with the global support teams to ensure service agreements are met, requirements are successfully implemented, and a high level of quality is maintained across the production systems.
This is a front office role for the London team, and would suit a junior candidate with a Computer Science background, strong logical thinking, and a solid, positive mindset for dealing with and supporting traders.

Key Responsibilities

Design and develop key pieces of functionality for the Commodities Derivatives Platform
Ensure stability of the platform by ensuring releases are suitably tested and impacts are considered
Ensure supportability of solutions
Follow team procedures for release control, code review, deployment, source code management and architectural governance

Incident and Problem Management

Manage and own P1/P2 incidents and problems end to end
Communicate with internal users and management on incidents and post-mortems
Ensure all support issues are correctly logged in the incident management system with relevant detail (downtime, slowness, etc.), and take ownership of their resolution
Diagnose issues and establish root cause
Initiate task forces for critical incidents
Liaise with upstream and downstream systems support teams, as appropriate

Application Monitoring and Follow-Up

Support a global uptime target of 99.9% across the Rates and Credit eTrading platform
Cover production implementation, troubleshooting and monitoring of Rates eTrading applications, including market connectivity through ION, algorithmic trading, auto-negotiation, pricing, D2D and D2C, and booking
Monitor application state and input/output data correctness throughout the day, handing over to follow-the-sun support teams
Perform system administration
Update relevant production KPIs
Support migration of monitoring to SCADA using Python scripts

Knowledge Management and Documentation

Document support procedures on the team wiki
Own the team knowledge base for all in-scope applications
Provide support to end-users on how to use the application
Ensure follow-the-sun and regional support teams are trained as required, particularly for new releases
Communicate a daily handover document to follow-the-sun support teams, where appropriate

Continuous Service Level Improvement

Contribute to capacity management of in-scope applications, proactively tracking trends in application behaviour and alerting Application Production and Development teams to potential future risks
Ensure application support logs are fit for purpose, meaningful and actionable
Seek to reduce dependency on manual interventions, for example by leveraging enterprise batch scheduling and monitoring tools

Maintenance and Enhancements

Participate in release cycles for functional validation on staging, pre-production and production environments, in particular for logs
Review releases and coordinate deployment and post-release checks
Communicate release notes

Project and Specific Tasks

Contribute to various projects and smaller tasks managed by the team, most of which relate to incident response, business requests or maintenance
Support new development projects by ensuring the supportability and monitoring of new tools, and by providing team and user training

Technical Competence
Essential

A degree in Computer Science, Mathematics or another numerate discipline, with strong logical reasoning and problem-solving ability
High motivation to learn within a large and complex environment
A genuine interest in, or understanding of, front office trading environments and the criticality of trading applications

Desirable

Prior experience in a similar support role, ideally gained within Front Office Trading
Knowledge of Rates products
Familiarity with Python, used for tasks such as the migration of monitoring to SCADA
French language skills, which are strongly preferred

Behavioural Competence

Self-starter, able to work with minimal supervision and use own initiative
Hard-working, driven, enthusiastic and committed
Strong team player
Analytical, with the ability to solve complex problems
Able to deliver results quickly and under pressure
Capable of multi-tasking, prioritising work and managing time effectively
Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain technical issues clearly
Calm and composed when working under pressure in a changing environment
A solid, positive mindset when dealing with and supporting stressed users and traders facing system issues
Strong sense of issue ownership and business accountability
Problem-solving mindset, with an inquisitive nature
Willingness to learn and willingness to deliver
Strong desire to investigate and resolve issues, both in the short term (workarounds and procedures) and the longer term (contributing to permanent fixes)
Genuine interest in a support-focused role
Good personal organisation, with the ability to follow up a large number of support issues simultaneously
Able to understand users' needs and translate these into practical IT solutions
Flexible and adaptable