Adaptive Financial Consulting
Java Distributed Systems Engineer - Fintech - London - Hybrid

How your CV stacks up
Upload your CV to see how well it fits this job role
?%
We Are:
Adaptive is a product-led financial technology company with deep expertise in capital, commodity, and digital markets. We build technology for investment banks, investment managers, fintechs, and capital markets service providers. Our consulting teams work with clients to implement and extend that technology, but our starting point is product engineering: solving difficult problems and building software that creates lasting competitive advantage.
We are hiring a Java Distributed Systems Engineer to help build Aeron Sequencer, our technology for applying state machine replication to capital markets. You will work on distributed systems that enable other engineering teams to build performant, reliable software. This is a hands-on role with the opportunity to influence product decisions, architecture, engineering practices, and how we communicate our work.
What You Will Do:
- Analyse, design, discuss, and develop distributed systems based on replicated state machines.
- Write clean, efficient, maintainable, and self-documenting Java code.
- Design and evolve messaging protocols and software libraries.
- Troubleshoot and debug Java applications and distributed systems.
- Apply testing, benchmarking, measurement, and profiling to improve correctness and performance.
- Participate in code reviews, pairing, and technical discussions to raise the quality of our work.
- Contribute to product decisions, not just task execution.
- Keep up to date with relevant software engineering technologies and practices.
- Communicate technical decisions and priorities clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
What You Will Bring:
- Experience designing, building, debugging, and operating distributed systems.
- Strong experience developing server-side software in Java.
- Experience designing and evolving messaging protocols or software libraries.
- Experience using different forms of testing to support software quality, including correctness and performance.
- Experience measuring, benchmarking, and profiling components or systems.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
- A collaborative approach, with a genuine interest in sharing knowledge and learning from others.
- The judgement to prioritise competing demands based on long-term value and explain those priorities to stakeholders.
- The confidence to challenge the status quo and suggest improvements, both technical and cultural.
Reasons to use Rodeo
I’m in my final year doing Economics and I don’t know whether to apply for grad schemes now or do a masters first. What do you think?
Honest answer — it depends on where you want to end up. A lot of top grad schemes (Big 4, civil service, banking) don’t need a masters. Let’s look at the ones you’d be competitive for now, and we can decide if a masters actually adds anything.
Also worth knowing: most autumn 2026 applications are open now. Timing matters more than you think.
Start with a chat, not a search bar
Grad scheme, placement, apprenticeship? Not sure what you want yet — that's fine. Your agent talks it through with you and turns "I have no idea" into a shortlist.
Graduate Consultant — 2026 Scheme
Why you're a good match
StrongYour economics background and your summer at a regional bank line up with what PwC looks for on the consulting scheme. Applications close in four weeks.
See breakdownIt searches the market for you
Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.
Why you're a good match
You’ve got the grades and the economics background, and your bank internship is exactly the experience this scheme looks for. Apply soon — deadlines close within the month.
Experience fit
Your summer at the bank plus your econometrics coursework map directly to the day-one responsibilities on this scheme — client modelling, market briefings, and deal support.
Only hits
No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.
Useful Additional Experience:
You do not need experience in every area below. It would be valuable if you have worked with one or more of the following:
- Messaging technologies or deterministic, replicated state machines.
- Low-latency, high-throughput, or predictable-performance systems.
- Property-based testing or deterministic simulation testing.
- Financial interchange protocols such as FIX or ITCH.
- OMS, EMS, or exchange systems.
- C, C++, or other programming languages.
- Build tools and engineering automation, such as Gradle or GitHub Actions.
- Cloud platforms such as AWS, GCP, or Azure.
- Container orchestration platforms such as Kubernetes.
- Pre-sales or customer-facing technical discussions.
- Building a public technical presence through blogs, conference talks, or external video content.
Why Adaptive:
- Interesting engineering problems. Work with passionate engineers on software where correctness, performance, and ease of use matter.
- Product influence. Help shape technology that is used to solve complex problems in financial markets, rather than simply delivering predefined client requirements.
- Collaborative teams. We share knowledge, learn from one another, respect different perspectives, and contribute wherever help is needed.
- Flexible working. We support a highly flexible, hybrid working model.
- A sustainable pace. Work-life balance is important to us, supported by wellbeing benefits and a focus on long-term performance.
- An inclusive culture. We aim to create a positive, collaborative environment and support our people and local communities through wellbeing, diversity, and inclusion programmes.
- Adaptive has offices in London, New York, Barcelona, Montreal, and Manila, bringing together a global team with a shared focus on building better financial technology.


Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
Benefits:
For permanent employees:
- 25 days holiday
- Family medical and dental
- Pension plan
- Season ticket loan
- Gym subsidy
- Life insurance
- Long-term disability insurance
- Employee Assistance Plan
The Process:
We want to make sure that everything runs smoothly. Here you will have three stage interviews:
- A chat with one of our great recruiters.
- A zoom chat with one of our Java colleagues where they will ask you detailed questions about your experience.
- A Face to Face interview (either in our office or via Zoom). During this interview, we will dig even deeper and you will have a pair programming task to do.
But don’t worry; everything will be explained to you step by step by your recruiter.
A little tip for you during those stages: Collaboration is massively important to us, so don't hesitate to share your thoughts, ask questions, ask for help if needed, etc.
Diversity & Inclusion:
Diversity and inclusion are key to a great workplace, and Adaptive is better when it’s more representative of the world around us. We want everyone to feel comfortable bringing their whole selves to work without any fear of judgment or negativity. All we ask is that our colleagues are respectful, collaborative, passionate about what they do, and have the skills needed to be successful in their roles.
Background check: Employment is subject to an acceptable background check that will be run by Adaptive.
“It took my CV and asked me questions relevant to understanding what kind of jobs to suggest for me. Suggestions were almost perfect. Jobs were exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
Jessica, London
Location