Senior Systems Engineer
Senior Systems Engineer
About Us
We’re a global alternative investment management firm focused on delivering outperformance for sophisticated clients through our Systematic, Discretionary and Solutions offerings. Powered by talent and advanced technology, our single and multi-manager investment strategies are underpinned by deep research and span public and private markets, across all major asset classes, with a significant focus on alternatives. We take a partnership approach to working with clients, building deep connections and creating tailored solutions to meet their investment goals and those of the millions of retirees and savers they represent.
We manage a substantial global portfolio and operate across multiple offices worldwide.
We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting and safeguarding your personal data. We’ve developed policies and processes designed to provide for the security and integrity of your personal data, and we’re committed to processing it fairly, lawfully, and with openness and transparency.
The Team
We’re seeking an experienced Senior Systems Engineer to join our Platform Engineering team. You’ll play a critical role in managing, stabilising, and progressively automating the infrastructure that underpins our global trading and research operations.
Our team is distributed internationally and operates at significant scale — tens of thousands of cores and hundreds of terabytes of memory supporting Python-based quantitative research and trading systems. We work closely with dedicated network, storage, database, and end-user teams, owning the compute, virtualisation, containerisation, and operating system layers of our stack.
We’re on a meaningful journey: migrating from existing workloads to OpenStack as our primary virtualisation platform, evolving from thick VMs toward lightweight container workloads on Kubernetes, and pushing our infrastructure automation from roughly 75% toward full IaC coverage.
We operate a hybrid working model, with this role expected in the office 3 days per week.
Role Responsibilities
Operating and evolving our compute infrastructure across VMware and OpenStack environments, supporting an active migration between the two platforms.
Deploying, configuring, and maintaining Linux systems at scale, including OS provisioning, iDRAC/BMC configuration, and ensuring consistency across large fleets.
Driving automation coverage using Terraform and Ansible, reducing manual toil and progressing our IaC maturity toward full coverage.
Contributing to the operation and growth of our Kubernetes platform, supporting a strategic shift from VM-based workloads to containerised services.
Diagnosing and resolving complex infrastructure problems, often under pressure, with the creativity and judgment to find solutions when the playbook doesn’t cover the situation.
Building and contributing to self-service platforms that empower hundreds of researchers, quants, and engineers across the firm.
Participating in a 24/7 on-call rota (approximately one week every five weeks) covering production environments.
Leveraging AI-assisted engineering tools as part of your daily workflow to accelerate delivery and improve quality.
Key Competencies
Essential
Solid, hands-on background in Linux systems administration at scale — you’re deeply comfortable with Ubuntu, RHEL, or similar distributions and understand how things work under the hood.
Experience with virtualisation platforms such as VMware vSphere or OpenStack, including day-to-day operations and troubleshooting.
Practical experience with infrastructure-as-code and configuration management tools — Terraform, Ansible, or equivalent — with a genuine drive to automate repetitive and manual processes.
Experience contributing to large-scale, complex infrastructure projects — such as platform migrations, major OS upgrade programmes, or infrastructure consolidations — with an understanding of the planning, risk, and coordination involved.
Comfortable working in partially automated environments: able to fix things by hand when necessary while actively working to eliminate that need.
Experience with scripting and automation using Python, Bash, PowerShell, or similar.
Familiarity with Kubernetes — operating clusters, deploying workloads, and troubleshooting in production.
Strong problem-solving instincts, especially in high-pressure or ambiguous situations.
Willingness to participate in the on-call rota and take ownership during major incidents.
Advantageous
Exposure to OpenStack in an operational context, or experience migrating workloads between hypervisors.
Knowledge of GitOps practices and tooling such as ArgoCD or Flux.
Experience with secrets management tools such as HashiCorp Vault.
Familiarity with Windows Server environments — not a core requirement, but useful given residual footprint.
Experience with CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or similar).
Exposure to observability tooling such as Prometheus, Grafana, or similar platforms.
Experience in financial services or other regulated industries.
Enthusiasm for AI-assisted development tools and a track record of adopting new tooling to improve personal and team productivity.
Inclusion, Work-Life Balance and Benefits
You’ll thrive in a working environment that champions equality of opportunity. Your unique perspective will contribute to our success, joining a workplace where inclusion is fundamental and deeply embedded in our culture and values. Through our external and internal initiatives, partnerships and programmes, you’ll find opportunities to grow, develop your talents, and help foster an inclusive environment for all across our firm and industry.
You’ll have opportunities to make a difference through our charitable and global initiatives, while advancing your career through professional development, with flexible working arrangements available too. Like all our people, you’ll receive two annual days of paid leave for community volunteering.
Our comprehensive benefits package includes competitive holiday entitlements, pension/401k, life and long-term disability coverage, group sick pay, enhanced parental leave and long-service leave. Depending on your location, you may also enjoy additional benefits such as private medical coverage, discounted gym membership options and pet insurance.
Adam Brinkley