AI Accelerated Trading Application Engineer - Aladdin Trader, Vice President

About this role

About BlackRock:
Are you interested in building innovative technology that crafts the financial markets? Do you like working at the speed of a startup, and solving some of the world’s most exciting challenges? Do you want to work with, and learn from, hands-on leaders in technology and finance? At BlackRock, we are looking for software engineers who like to innovate and solve sophisticated problems. We recognize that strength comes from diversity, and will embrace your outstanding skills, curiosity, and passion while giving you the opportunity to grow technically and as an individual.  

We invest and protect over $14 trillion (USD) of assets and have an extraordinary responsibility to our clients all over the world. Our technology empowers millions of investors to save for retirement, pay for college, buy a home, and improve their financial well-being. Being a technologist at BlackRock means you get the best of both worlds: working for one of the most sophisticated financial companies and being part of a software development team responsible for next generation technology and solutions.  

What are Aladdin and Aladdin Engineering?

You will be working on BlackRock's investment tooling, operations, and application system called Aladdin. Aladdin combines sophisticated risk analytics with comprehensive portfolio management, trading, and operations tools on a single platform to power informed decision-making and create a connective tissue for thousands of users investing worldwide.

Our development teams reside inside the Aladdin Engineering group. We collaboratively build the next generation of technology that changes the way information, people, and technology intersect for global investment firms. We build and package tools that manage trillions in assets and supports millions of financial instruments.

 
Responsibilities include:

• Design and implement AI driven automation across the software development lifecycle, including agent based support for coding, testing, code review, and release validation.
• Establish and evolve agentic development environments, including context management, evaluations, and feedback loops to continuously improve AI output quality.
• Act as a technical force multiplier by helping teams safely scale the use of AI and autonomous agents in a regulated, mission critical environment.
• Deliver high throughput, scalable, highly available, concurrent and fault tolerant software systems
• Collaborate with team members in a multi-office, multi-country environment
• Significantly contribute to development of Aladdin’s global, multi-asset trading platform
• Work with product management and business users to define the roadmap for the product
• Design and develop innovative solutions to complex problems, identifying issues and roadblocks 
• Apply validated quality software engineering practices through all phases of development 
• Ensure resilience and stability through quality code reviews, unit, regression and user acceptance testing, dev ops and level two production support
• Be a leader with vision and a partner in brainstorming solutions for team productivity, efficiency, guiding and motivating others
• Drive a strong culture by bringing principles of inclusion and diversity to the team and setting the tone through specific recruiting, management actions and employee engagement

Qualifications / Skills and Experience:

• B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field
• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Hands on experience leveraging modern AI assisted development tools and platforms (e.g., Claude Code, Windsurf, Cursor or similar)
• Experience building AI agents to automate portions of the product development lifecycle (PDLC), including coding, testing, review, and validation
• Experience designing agentic context environments, evaluation systems and self improvement loops to ensure correctness, repeatability and governance of AI outputs.
• Strong foundation in core Java, object-oriented design, and design patterns
• Hands-on experience with Java, Spring / Spring Boot, Hibernate
• Proven track record of building high-quality, test-driven software with strong design principles
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills
• Deep understanding of concurrent programming and experience designing high-throughput, highly available, fault-tolerant distributed systems
• Experience designing and operating distributed systems with a focus on resiliency, idempotency, failure handling, and scalability
• Extensive experience building microservices / SOA architectures
• Experience with event-driven and message-oriented systems (Kafka, MQ, AMPS, NATS, etc.)
• Experience with relational and NoSQL databases (e.g., SQL Server, Sybase, Cassandra, Redis)
• Exposure with high-scale distributed technologies such as Kafka, Cassandra, Redis, MongoDB, Ignite, Zookeeper
• Demonstrated experience using modern engineering tools and practices (Git, Maven, unit/integration testing frameworks, mocking frameworks)
• Experience building APIs and microservices using REST, Kafka, or gRPC
• Ability to continuously evaluate and adopt emerging AI, LLM, and engineering tools
• Experience leading projects or providing technical leadership for the design and quality of significant systems or components
• Ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams, partners, and stakeholders across regions
• Experience driving delivery planning, prioritization, and execution against business commitments
• Ensure system quality through automated testing, AI-assisted code reviews, and production support
• Interest or experience in finance or investment processes, with the ability to translate business problems into technical solutions 

 
Nice to Have / Opportunities to Learn:

• Practical experience applying cloud-native design patterns to event-driven microservice architectures
• Experience working in agile teams and/or contributing to open-source projects
• Background in optimization, algorithms, or quantitative systems
• Experience with cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP)
• Experience with containerization and cloud deployment tools (Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible)
• Experience with DevOps practices and tools, including Azure DevOps
• Experience with agentic orchestration systems or multi agent workflows
• Experience working on AI focused platforms, internal AI tooling, or research adjacent environments
• Familiarity with modern front-end frameworks (React, Angular, Vue.js)
• Certifications, advanced degrees, or an open-source track record demonstrating mastery of software engineering principles

 
What We Offer:

• The chance to make a real impact in a global trading environment.
• A collaborative, inclusive team with a focus on professional growth and technical excellence.
• Opportunities to work with cutting-edge technologies and complex problem domains.
• Support for ongoing training, certification, and career progression.
   

For New York, NY Only the salary range for this position is USD$162,000.00 - USD$215,000.00 . Additionally, employees are eligible for an annual discretionary bonus, and benefits including healthcare, leave benefits, and retirement benefits. BlackRock operates a pay-for-performance compensation philosophy and your total compensation may vary based on role, location, and firm, department and individual performance.

Our benefits

To help you stay energized, engaged and inspired, we offer a wide range of benefits including a strong retirement plan, tuition reimbursement, comprehensive healthcare, support for working parents and Flexible Time Off (FTO) so you can relax, recharge and be there for the people you care about.

Our hybrid work model

BlackRock’s hybrid work model is designed to enable a culture of collaboration and apprenticeship that enriches the experience of our employees, while supporting flexibility for all. Employees are currently required to work at least 4 days in the office per week, with the flexibility to work from home 1 day a week. Some business groups may require more time in the office due to their roles and responsibilities. We remain focused on increasing the impactful moments that arise when we work together in person – aligned with our commitment to performance and innovation. As a new joiner, you can count on this hybrid model to accelerate your learning and onboarding experience here at BlackRock.

About BlackRock

At BlackRock, we are all connected by one mission: to help more and more people experience financial well-being.  Our clients, and the people they serve, are saving for retirement, paying for their children’s educations, buying homes and starting businesses. Their investments also help to strengthen the global economy: support businesses small and large; finance infrastructure projects that connect and power cities; and facilitate innovations that drive progress.

This mission would not be possible without our smartest investment – the one we make in our employees. It’s why we’re dedicated to creating an environment where our colleagues feel welcomed, valued and supported with networks, benefits and development opportunities to help them thrive.

For additional information on BlackRock, please visit @blackrock | Twitter: @blackrock | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/blackrock

BlackRock is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity to all applicants and existing employees, and we evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, creed, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity/expression), sexual orientation, age, ancestry, physical or mental disability, marital status, political affiliation, religion, citizenship status, genetic information, veteran status, or any other basis protected under applicable federal, state, or local law. View the EEOC’s Know Your Rights poster and its supplement and the pay transparency statement.

 

BlackRock is committed to full inclusion of all qualified individuals and to providing reasonable accommodations or job modifications for individuals with disabilities. If reasonable accommodation/adjustments are needed throughout the employment process, please email Disability.Assistance@blackrock.com. All requests are treated in line with our privacy policy.

BlackRock will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records in a manner consistent with the requirements of the law, including any applicable fair chance law.