Head of Trading Technology

As Head of Trading Technology at Tokka Labs, you lead the core and platform engineering team building the firm's next-generation low-latency trading infrastructure. This is a hands-on technical leadership role combining deep low-latency expertise from traditional finance HFT with the demands of on-chain DeFi and RWA trading.

What you'll do

• Own the end-to-end architecture and delivery of a high-performance, low-latency trading platform that meets the rigorous demands of off-chain and on-chain trading.
• Lead by example: write and review critical code, make and own architectural decisions, personally resolve complex performance and latency issues.
• Lead, grow, and inspire a team of elite engineers, providing hands-on guidance and mentorship to junior and mid-level talent.
• Set clear timelines, manage dependencies across components, track progress, and ensure high-quality delivery of the full trading stack.
• Maintain a strong understanding of the entire trading infrastructure (from market data ingestion through order execution and risk systems) and effectively manage specialized engineers working on individual layers.
• Drive continuous optimization for latency, throughput, reliability, and scalability in a competitive trading environment.
• Collaborate closely with traders, quants, and business stakeholders to ensure technical solutions directly support trading strategies.
• Establish and enforce engineering best practices, including testing, CI/CD, monitoring, and operational excellence.

What you bring

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 5 years in technical leadership roles (Lead, Head of, or Director level) within trading firms.
• Proven hands-on experience building or optimizing high-performance trading systems in traditional finance HFT (equities, futures, commodities) or other high-frequency markets.
• Deep proficiency as a hands-on programmer in high-performance languages such as C++ or Rust, with a track record of delivering production low-latency systems.
• Demonstrated success managing and mentoring elite engineering teams in fast-paced trading environments.
• Solid end-to-end understanding of trading infrastructure (market data, execution, risk, clearing, and related systems) and the ability to manage engineers across specialized components.
• Strong ability to set priorities, manage timelines, and drive complex technical projects to completion.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to make sound technical decisions under ambiguity.

About Tokka Labs

Tokka Labs is a proprietary trading firm focused on close collaboration, rigorous research, and cutting-edge technology. They are market makers, searchers, and solvers for top protocols on the most popular blockchains, designing and implementing proprietary trading systems and strategies to provide liquidity across decentralized finance and RWA trading.