Staff Software Engineer, Exchange Platform

Robinhood · London, UK

Join us in building the future of finance. Our mission is to democratize finance for all. An estimated $124 trillion of assets will be inherited by younger generations in the next two decades. The largest transfer of wealth in human history. If you’re ready to be at the epicenter of this historic cultural and financial shift, keep reading. About the team + role We are building an elite team, applying frontier technologies to the world’s biggest financial problems. We’re looking for bold thinkers. Sharp problem-solvers. Builders who are wired to make an impact. Robinhood isn’t a place for complacency, it’s where ambitious people do the best work of their careers. We’re a high-performing, fast-moving team with ethics at the center of everything we do. Expectations are high, and so are the rewards. Bitstamp made history in 2011 as the world’s first regulated crypto exchange. As a key part of the Robinhood family, the Exchange Platform team owns the full service lifecycle. We are the architects of a modern, high-velocity ecosystem that enables our global expansion, ensuring the world’s longest-running exchange remains unshakeable. As a Staff Backend Engineer on the Exchange Platform team, you will define the technical vision, long-term architectural roadmap, and engineering standards for our platform modernization strategy. You will serve as a primary technical leader across the Bitstamp exchange ecosystem—architecting the next generation of cloud infrastructure for mission-critical, low-latency services, driving complex distributed systems integrations, and elevating the technical bar across Robinhood. This role is based in our London office, with in-person attendance expected at least 3 days per week. At Robinhood, we believe in the power of in-person work to accelerate progress, spark innovation, and strengthen community. Our office experience is intentional, energizing, and designed to fully support high-performing teams. Requires participation in an on-call rotation to support business needs. What you’ll do Architect Strategic Infrastructure : Define and drive the long-term architectural vision for high-availability, low-latency cloud platforms, setting engineering standards that ensure performance, reliability, and portability across our global ecosystem. Lead Modernization at Scale: Spearhead multi-quarter modernization initiatives, driving the transition of foundational services to resilient, containerized cloud environments while optimizing deployment pipelines and auto-scaling patterns. Direct High-Stakes Integrations: Lead the technical alignment and distributed architecture bridging Bitstamp’s exchange backend with Robinhood’s global infrastructure, solving complex cross-organization technical challenges. Eliminate Operational Toil & Technical Debt: Anticipate future scalability bottlenecks and architect self-healing systems and intelligent automation that radically reduce operational load and boost developer velocity. Exercise Systemic Ownership : Take end-to-end accountability for ambiguous, high-impact technical initiatives—navigating complex trade-offs between speed, resilience, cost, and maintainability. Foster Technical Leadership & Culture: Mentor and elevate senior engineers, lead architectural design reviews, and establish engineering best practices that raise the bar across the organization. Uphold Platform Resilience: Act as a senior escalation point for high-severity incidents, lead rigorous post-mortems, and institute systemic safeguards to ensure 24/7 unshakeable platform integrity. What you bring Extensive Technical Leadership : 8+ years of relevant experience in backend and distributed systems engineering, with a proven track record of operating as a technical lead or Staff-level engineer in high-scale environments. Deep Cloud & Container Mastery : Advanced architectural expertise with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) and enterprise-scale AWS cloud services (EC2, ECS/EKS, Aurora, DynamoDB). Distributed Systems & Low-Latency Acumen: Deep understanding of high-concurrency, low-latency backend architectures, event-driven systems, fault tolerance, and data consistency models. Strategic Autonomy & Execution: Demonstrated ability to take ambiguous, organization-wide problems from inception to production, successfully delivering high-impact business outcomes. Cross-Functional Influence: Exceptional communication skills with the ability to build technical consensus, influence cross-functional roadmaps, and align senior engineering and product stakeholders across multiple geographies. Operational Excellence: A pragmatic, systems-thinking mindset that balances forward-looking architectural evolution with the operational realities of supporting a 24/7 financial exchange. What we offer Challenging, high-impact work to grow your career Performance driven compensation with multipliers for outsized impact, bonus programs, and equity ownership Top tier benefits to fuel your wo