Most recruitment firms know the job title. We know the market.
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Specialist recruitment for capital markets technology companies. We place the technology, product, data and commercial talent that powers them.
One ecosystem. Three areas of focus.
Three streams sit at the centre of what we do.
The platforms and systems behind trading and investment decisions.
Order, execution and portfolio management, low-latency systems, pricing, connectivity, and the quant tooling underneath. Includes commodities and energy trading technology.
The rails the whole market depends on.
Market data, reference and pricing data, research and analytics, connectivity, exchanges and venues, and the post-trade chain: clearing, settlement, custody and asset servicing.
The technology that keeps firms inside the rules.
Risk systems, trade and market surveillance, compliance, regulatory reporting, and the data and workflow that feed them. Serving banks, asset managers, hedge funds, venues and the vendors who build for them.
Every capital markets technology company needs three things.
We recruit across all three.
The people who build the systems and keep them up when milliseconds cost money.
Software Engineering, C++, Quant Development, FPGA, Low-Latency Systems, Market Data, Electronic Trading, AI & Data, Platform Engineering, Java, Python, DevOps, SRE, QA, Production Support
The people who turn the technology into something clients actually buy and use.
Product Management, Product Ownership, Business Analysis, Project Delivery, Implementation, Professional Services
The people who win the clients, and keep them.
Pre-Sales, Sales Engineering, Solutions Consulting, Business Development, Account Management, Customer Success, Partnerships.
Individual contributor through to senior and leadership appointments across all three.
On paper, the brief was three quant engineers,two C++, one Python, for a London team under delivery pressure. The reality was a SaaS vendor trying to hire C++20 talent the hedge funds were paying 50 to 100 per cent bonuses to hold onto. The previous firm had burned a month submitting over-budget, off-target candidates. I reframed the opportunity around modern systems engineering rather than the alpha chase, mapped 241 engineers down to a shortlist of 15, and delivered three accepted offers, under budget, in six weeks.
Richard was instrumental in helping us fill several highly specialised quantitative roles. He brought strong candidates to the table, understood our technical and cultural requirements, and worked closely with me and the internal team to align the process. What stood out the most was his understanding of hiring engineers; he was very forthright with his insights on each person and didn’t oversell or undersell anyone he represented.Head of Quantitative Modelling + Global Trading Technology Vendor
This report is built from real hiring projects, candidate conversations, and salary discussions across the market data industry. Designed for everyone in the ecosystem, it provides a practical view of compensation, talent availability, and recruitment trends I am seeing in today's market.
| Role | Mid (GBP) | Senior (GBP) | Lead / Principal (GBP) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Java / C++ / low-latency engineer | £75,000 – £100,000 | £100,000 – £140,000 | £140,000 – £170,000 |
| Quant developer | £85,000 – £115,000 | £115,000 – £150,000 | £150,000 – £200,000 |
| Javascript / full-stack engineer | £60,000 – £85,000 | £85,000 – £115,000 | £110,000 – £145,000 |
| SRE / platform engineer | £65,000 – £80,000 | £90,000 – £115,000 | £115,000 – £150,000 |
| QA / Automation engineer | £40,000 – £55,000 | £50,000 – £85,000 | £65,000 – £100,000 |
Not every hiring challenge needs the same approach.
I take on a limited number of contingent searches each quarter. When you need quick plug and play access to the market.
No retainer, no monthly commitment. You pay on the hire.
Best for single hires where speed matters.
Richard helped transform our hiring process, resulting in a 100% offer acceptance rate for roles we had previously struggled to fill.Chief People Officer, Capital Markets Financial Technology Firm
A hiring process we can Reproduce, Repeat and Replicate. Built on Agile, Lou Adler Performance-Based Hiring, and Values-Based Hiring.
A structured process that can be applied to every hire, not reinvented every time a vacancy appears.
The ability to deliver quality shortlists consistently, regardless of role, market conditions, or hiring manager.
Outcomes driven by process, data, and execution rather than luck, timing, or individual heroics.
A small number of roles, worked properly. Each one is a Project, not a posting.
Foundational backend work at a venture-backed fintech SaaS in Manhattan. You'll build the calculation engine, workflow orchestration platform and financial models that every feature of the product sits on, working directly with the founders. Platform engineering rather than feature work, in an environment where correctness, auditability and clean abstractions are the whole job.
A forward deployed engineering role at a Series A AI fintech whose product is already live with financial services clients. You sit directly with hedge funds and investment managers, scope the problem on the ground, then build the agentic workflow yourself. Roughly 80% building, the rest managing demanding front-office stakeholders. Early enough that your work shapes how deployments are delivered and what good looks like for enterprise agentic AI in finance.
Practitioner notes on the market. Real numbers, named patterns, no slop.
200 applicants, maybe one or two real hires. A full pipeline is not a talent pool. Why standard hiring fails in market infrastructure, and what works instead.
Read'We need someone senior' kills more good hires than any bad candidate ever could. Most of the time it doesn't mean experienced. It doesn't mean exceptional. It means safe. What that costs you.
ReadGhosting has taken over every recruitment conversation. The system is broken in places, that part isn't up for debate. But not every unanswered application is ghosting, and sometimes you didn't follow up.
ReadAnyone can set up a recruitment firm. Few do it properly. I'm not trying to scale my firm. I'm trying to scale yours.
Nearly twenty years in specialist recruitment, most of it in trading technology, market data, and the RegTech and fintech firms that build what capital markets run on. The stint that shaped me was internal: two years inside Series A RegTech as it scaled from fifty people to over a hundred. Sitting on that side of the table teaches you fast how much time gets wasted on candidates who were never right. I didn't start Ocean Red to grow headcount and sell it on. I started it to recruit brilliantly, one search at a time. It's me on every search, and I only put forward a name I'd stake my reputation on. Try me.
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