Head of Engineering - Options

About Keyrock

Founded in 2017, Keyrock has become a notable force in the digital asset industry, known for building partnerships and bringing fresh ideas to market. The company now has more than 200 people across the globe, representing 42 nationalities and bringing together expertise from DeFi specialists to PhD-level talent. Although the team works mostly remotely, Keyrock also operates hubs in London, Madrid, Brussels, Singapore, New York, and Paris, with regular online and in-person gatherings to keep teams connected.

Keyrock trades across 80+ exchanges and serves a broad range of asset issuers. As an established market maker, the company has expanded its scope into market making, options trading, high-frequency trading, OTC services, DeFi trading desks, and asset and wealth management. Its longer-term ambition is to grow into a full-service capital markets and asset & wealth management institution through a mix of new product development and strategic expansion.

Beyond being a service provider, Keyrock positions itself as an active builder in the industry. It has been an early adopter of Rust for algorithmic trading systems and continues to support its wider adoption. The company also contributes liquidity to promising DeFi, RWA, and NFT protocols, while advancing the space through research and governance work.

Role overview

Keyrock is hiring a Head of Engineering / Engineering Lead with deep experience in systematic options trading to guide the Options Engineering team. The role centers on improving trading infrastructure and helping evolve a systematic options trading platform, with direct ownership across automated quoting, execution, risk management, pricing workflows, and reliability in production.

The company is mainly seeking candidates located in European time zones or the US East Coast time zone.

What this role involves

In this position, you will lead a team of roughly 7 engineers and help shape its growth. You will be expected to bring practical experience in systematic options trading, including options market-making, automated quoting, execution, and risk oversight. A major part of the role is to take ownership of an existing Rust-native systematic options platform and continue improving it.

You will also provide technical leadership over trading infrastructure, system architecture, performance, production stability, and risk controls, while working through complex engineering and trading challenges in a pragmatic way. The role requires close collaboration with trading, quant, product, risk, and infrastructure teams, along with a strong balance between technical leadership, people leadership, operational discipline, and delivery accountability.

Required experience and technical background

Candidates should bring at least 7 years of experience in systematic trading, options market-making, or low-latency trading systems. Strong practical experience in Rust, C++, or C is required, along with a willingness to become highly proficient in Rust if needed.

Solid knowledge of algorithmic options trading is essential, including automated quoting, execution, pricing, risk controls, and market data handling. Experience developing or supporting low-latency trading systems, especially in options or derivatives markets, is expected. The role also calls for production experience with SQL databases, preferably PostgreSQL.

Additional strengths include familiarity with functional testing, component testing, and production validation practices, as well as a strong understanding of distributed systems, service boundaries, and production reliability. Experience with gRPC and Node.js-based services is preferred. Prior exposure to crypto exchange connectivity and/or FPGA technologies is strongly preferred.

Leadership and working style

The ideal candidate should be a collaborative team player who can mentor engineers and help guide technical decisions. A pragmatic mindset is important for problem-solving, design, and implementation.

You should be comfortable balancing latency, reliability, safety, complexity, and delivery speed, and able to make decisions in uncertain situations. The role also calls for creative thinking that remains grounded in practical execution. Clear communication is especially important when working through unfamiliar or ambiguous problems, and you should be able to work effectively with traders, quants, risk teams, product, and infrastructure stakeholders. Strong ownership over production trading systems is essential.

Recruitment philosophy

Keyrock values self-awareness and strong communication during hiring. The company looks for people who are deeply motivated, understand their career direction, and are making a conscious choice to work in this field. The ideal match is someone who is enthusiastic about crypto, collaborative, accountable, and focused on delivering scalable outcomes.

Offer and working conditions

The company offers a competitive salary package, flexible working hours, and the option to work remotely. It also emphasizes the freedom to shape your own entrepreneurial experience within a team that is committed to excellence.

Additional conditions

Keyrock states that it is committed to a positive and collaborative workplace and that hiring, rewards, and promotions are based entirely on merit and performance. Because of the nature of the business and external requirements, all potential employees must undergo background checks, and passing these checks is required to join the company.