Software Engineer - Agentic SDLC

The posting, as Optiver wrote it

At Optiver, the velocity of our software development is a critical part of our competitive advantage. Our ability to compete depends on how quickly new ideas can move from insight to production. The Developer Experience team is a strategic engineering function with a clear mandate: improve the software development lifecycle across the company in ways that accelerate delivery and reduce our time to market. We build the tools, systems, and platforms that shape how software is developed at Optiver.

Many organisations are treating AI as something that helps developers work faster - we think that framing may already be out of date. Agents are now capable of doing work end-to-end, not just assisting with it - at a volume and cadence our current software development lifecycle was never designed to absorb. That shifts the problem we are trying to solve from how to make a developer faster to how to make an agent capable of running the entire lifecycle on its own both safely and efficiently.

As it turns out, this is more of a platform problem than a model problem. An agent is only as autonomous as the least autonomous step around it: the environment it needs and cannot provision, the credentials it has no identity to hold, the integration test it cannot stand up, the review that still waits on a human. Such gaps were invisible while everything ran at a human pace but are now what set the ceiling.

We’re looking for engineers who are excited by this problem and who want to help build the Agentic SDLC at Optiver. As part of our Developer Experience team, you’ll lead the development of the platforms, workflows, and guardrails that make autonomous development not only possible but also secure, measurable, and effective at scale.

What you’ll do

• Build just-in-time development environments for agents. Sandboxed compute provisioned per task rather than assigned to a person; sized and configured for the work in front of it, ready in seconds and torn down after.
• Make automated code review trustworthy. Review that weighs the whole case for a change — spec, tests, implementation decisions — not just the diff, and decides whether it is safe to ship, whether a human needs to be involved, and what to put in front of them.
• Develop testing frameworks that build confidence in agentic output. Complex, multi-service tests running in realistic environments against real dependencies, proving with evidence what any given change does to system behaviour.
• Establish a chain of custody for every change. An end-to-end trace of where a change came from, what agents acted on it under which credentials, and how it was built — complete enough to verify what it carries and prevent anything insecure from reaching privileged production environments.
• Build evaluation into the platform. Every model upgrade, context change and harness tweak alters how agents behave — measurement allows us to tune the platform on evidence rather than intuition and ensure that the quality

[…]
and speed.

• You are excited to work on problems nobody has solved yet. You care about the developer experience, how developers and agents can work together, and you're passionate about building the future of how software gets made.

Who we are

At Optiver, our mission is to improve the market by injecting liquidity, providing accurate pricing, increasing transparency and stabilising the market no matter the conditions. With a focus on continuous improvement, we prioritise safeguarding the health and efficiency of the markets for all participants. As one of the largest market making institutions, we are a respected partner on 100+ exchanges across the globe.

Our differences are our edge. Optiver does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental disability, or other legally protected characteristics.

What you’ll get

You’ll join a culture of collaboration and excellence, where you’ll be surrounded by curious thinkers and creative problem solvers. Motivated by a passion for continuous improvement, you’ll thrive in a supportive, high-performing environment alongside talented colleagues, working collectively to tackle the toughest problems in the financial markets.

In addition, you’ll receive

• The opportunity to work alongside best-in-class professionals from over 40 different countries
• A highly competitive compensation package
• Global profit-sharing pool and performance-based bonus structure
• 401(k) match up to 50%
• Comprehensive health, mental, dental, vision, disability, and life coverage
• 25 paid vacation days alongside market holidays
• Extensive office perks, including breakfast, lunch and snacks, regular social events, clubs, sporting leagues and more

Below is the expected base salary for this position. This position will also be eligible for a discretionary bonus and Optiver’s benefits package with the benefits listed above.

Base Salary Range
$200,000 — $200,000 USD