Director, Index Research Platform Enineering

ABOUT US: LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group) is more than a diversified global financial markets infrastructure and data business. We are dedicated, open-access partners with a dedication to excellence in delivering the services our customers expect from us. With extensive experience, deep knowledge and worldwide presence across financial markets, we enable businesses and economies around the world to fund innovation, manage risk and create jobs. It’s how we’ve contributed to supporting the financial stability and growth of communities and economies globally for more than 300 years. Through a comprehensive suite of trusted financial market infrastructure services – and our open-access model – we provide the flexibility, stability and trust that enable our customers to pursue their ambitions with confidence and clarity.   LSEG is headquartered in the United Kingdom, with significant operations in 70 countries across EMEA, North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific. We employ 25,000 people globally, more than half located in Asia Pacific. LSEG’s ticker symbol is LSEG.   OUR PEOPLE: People are at the heart of what we do and drive the success of our business. Our culture of connecting, creating opportunity and delivering excellence shape how we think, how we do things and how we help our people fulfil their potential. We embrace diversity and actively seek to attract individuals with unique backgrounds and perspectives. We break down barriers and encourage teamwork, enabling innovation and rapid development of solutions that make a difference. Our workplace generates an enriching and rewarding experience for our people and customers alike. Our vision is to build an inclusive culture in which everyone feels encouraged to fulfil their potential.   We know that real personal growth cannot be achieved by simply climbing a career ladder – which is why we encourage and enable a wealth of avenues and interesting opportunities for everyone to broaden and deepen their skills and expertise. As a global organisation spanning 70 countries and one rooted in a culture of growth, opportunity, diversity and innovation, LSEG is a place where everyone can grow, develop and fulfil your potential with meaningful careers!!   FTSE Russell | LSEG Technology A subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), FTSE Russell supports investors worldwide in making informed decisions across asset classes, investment strategies, and market segments. Its products are trusted by institutional and retail investors, asset managers, and pension funds to benchmark performance, build investment portfolios, and manage risk. With a reputation for innovation, transparency, and robust governance, FTSE Russell plays a critical role in shaping global financial markets—and you can be part of that impact. ROLE SUMMARY: This is a senior, hands-on technology leadership role at the intersection of quantitative research, software engineering, and commercial product delivery. You will lead the research industrialization agenda: building the technical environment that enables ideas to move from research to production and become marketable products. Developers come first in this role. You will earn experience-based trust across the wider R&D resource pool, federate quant developers and specialist contributors, and create the cohesion needed to move forward at pace. Based in Europe, you will help connect the community across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Key Responsibilities Set the technical vision and architecture for a production-grade research platform that accelerates the journey from quantitative idea to market-ready index, portfolio, data, or analytics solution Lead and federate the quant development community across the broader R&D organization, building trust through credible technical contribution, clear direction, and hands-on support Maintain a systemic view of R&D capacity and pipeline, identifying high-value “factorization” opportunities: separating reusable shared assets from research-specific methods that should remain purpose-built Champion the research industrialization flow by bringing together developers, DevOps engineers, security officers, data analysts, and other embedded specialists around a coherent delivery environment Design durable patterns for experimentation, validation, deployment, observability, governance, and lifecycle management so that research outputs can be adopted confidently in production Remain a genuine developer: write and review modern Python and production-quality software, dive into difficult technical problems, and constructively challenge engineering decisions and implementation quality Make production centricity non-negotiable across methodologies, code, data, models, and the research platform; go beyond straight-line or happy-path testing to deliver reliable, supportable solutions that teams will actually use Partner deeply with Research counterparts, sustaining in-depth conversations on quantitative methods, assumptions, trade-offs, and scientific evidence across multiple asset classes Use AI as a practical accelerator for research and engineering, while shaping responsible adoption of machine learning, language models, and agentic workflows where they create measurable value Keep a strong commercial drive: serve the FTSE Russell Research agenda while identifying opportunities to package and monetize reusable solutions in the public market; experience deploying portfolio construction solutions is a significant advantage WHAT YOU'LL BRING: Substantial experience leading quantitative technology, quantitative development, or research engineering initiatives, with a track record of federating communities and delivering through influence Recent, tangible hands-on software development experience; expert-level Python and confidence working with scientific and data engineering libraries such as NumPy, Polars, Pandas, SciPy, and related tools A robust academic foundation in Computer Science, Engineering, Statistics, Physics, Mathematics, or another quantitative discipline, enabling credible technical dialogue with researchers Broad financial markets expertise across multiple asset classes, with strong understanding of portfolio construction, quantitative research, investment processes, and index or benchmark methodologies Experience architecting and operating production platforms, including CI/CD, testing, observability, cloud infrastructure, data management, security, and operational governance Demonstrated ability to turn research into reliable products, with an obsession for production quality, reproducibility, maintainability, and adoption—not just successful prototypes Solid foundation in AI and machine learning, with practical experience applying or deploying language models, machine-learning models, or data-analytical systems; familiarity with agentic development is valuable Strong commercial judgement and ability to balance internal strategic priorities with opportunities to create reusable, externally valuable and monetizable capabilities Excellent communication and relationship-building skills, including the ability to establish trust with senior researchers, developers, and specialist teams across geographies Located in Europe, where the core community is concentrated and where the role is well positioned to extend collaboration into Asia and the Americas Preferred Experience deploying portfolio construction, optimization, or investment analytics solutions into production environments Track record of building shared platforms, libraries, or developer assets that increase the throughput of a wider quant research community Experience with AWS or comparable cloud platforms, data processing at scale, MLOps, model risk management, and secure software delivery Practical experience with large language model deployment, evaluation, retrieval-augmented systems, or machine-learning workflows used by analysts and r