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About Us

XPLAIN is designed and supported by a team of senior market practitioners, keen to address the inefficiencies surrounding the world of financial data quality and control.

Our Vision

Combining the latest available technology with significant financial expertise, XPLAIN seeks to re-imagine the processes surrounding financial data quality and control by increasing robustness, reducing risk and minimising inefficiencies, whilst increasing transparency and traceability.

Our Experience

The XPLAIN team has an average of more than 25 years of experience in technology, trading, modelling, risk management, valuation, documentation, reporting and regulation.

For more information about Solum Financial and the team responsible for building XPLAIN click here.

our team

Thu-Uyen Nguyen

Chief Executive Officer

Gareth Boden

Chief Technology Officer

Teimuraz Barbakadze

Chief Client Officer

Su Green

Chief Product Officer

Vincent Dahinden

Founder and Chairman

Philip Swannell

Head of Quantitative Analysis

Kevin Liddy

Head of Market Research

Jon Gregory

xVA Senior Advisor

Jevgenij Teorovic

Senior Back End Developer

Donatas Zubavicius

Senior Back End Developer

Szymon Stec

Senior Front End Developer

George Charman

Product Manager

Nathan Taylor

Software Engineer

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Thu-Uyen has 27 years of experience in trading complex derivatives and consultancy. Prior to Solum Financial, she worked at Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns and Chase Manhattan Bank. During her eight years at Merrill Lynch, she was in turn responsible for trading the credit correlation book, new product development, co-heading the Structured Credit Structuring Group, and overseeing the structuring and risk management of the ABS correlation book. For three years at Bear Stearns, Thu-Uyen was responsible for exotic interest rate trading. While at Chase Manhattan, she was an exotic interest rate quant trader and also traded vanilla options. Thu-Uyen holds a five-year engineer degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science.

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Gareth has 25 years of experience within technology and has worked in a diverse range of industries, including Financial Services. Gareth was formerly Lead API Architect at ARM. In his prior career he has worked as a Software Architect and Java Consultant for companies including Nokia and Goldman Sachs. Gareth’s area of expertise is the creation of robust and cost-effective solutions, through the creation and integration of innovative web-based solutions into existing complex IT landscapes. Gareth holds an MA from Cambridge University in Computer Science.

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Teimuraz has 33 years of experience in banking, asset management and consultancy. Prior to joining Solum Financial, he worked at F&C Asset Management, Société Générale, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank and Moody’s Investors Service. At F&C Asset Management and Société Générale he was head of structured credit business in Europe, specialising in origination, structuring and marketing of various fixed income products as well as managing proprietary asset portfolios. Previously at Deutsche and Merrill he was head of the teams responsible for arbitrage and balance sheet CLOs and regulatory capital management transactions. Teimuraz holds International MBA from Glasgow University and PhD in Mathematics from Moscow Institute of Control Studies.

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Su has 22 years of experience in structured credit (structuring, marketing, trading) and consultancy. She was formerly a Portfolio Manager responsible for trading structured credit at CQS, a global credit hedge fund. Prior to this Su was an Executive Director at Morgan Stanley and a Director at Merrill Lynch both within the structured credit areas. She began her career as an interest rate swaps trader at Merrill Lynch. Su holds an MA in Mathematics from Cambridge University.

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Vincent has 35 years of experience in the financial sector and consultancy, beginning his career in 1986 as a fixed income fund manager at Citibank in Switzerland. He then moved to Merrill Lynch as an FX and interest rates derivatives structurer. At Bear Stearns, he helped build the credit derivatives business in Europe, before joining CSFB as co-head of securitisation for Asia. Returning to Merrill Lynch as a Managing Director in Europe, he ran the Corporate Derivatives desk and eventually the structured credit and corporate securitisation business. In 2004 he joined RBS as Managing Director responsible for the exotic credit trading and structuring business, which included the credit correlation desk, CDO/CLO, structured products and principal finance. Vincent holds an MBA in Finance from Hartford University.

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Philip Swannell

Head of Quantitative Analysis

Philip has 36 years of experience in OTC derivatives, trading, quantitative analytics and systems design. Philip was formerly a Managing Director at Nomura in London with responsibility for both front office quantitative analytics (rates, credit, commodities and FX) and Nomura’s in-house global front-to-back derivative system. Prior to this Philip worked at UBS and NatWest as a derivatives trader and systems designer. Philip holds an MA in Mathematics from Oxford University.

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Kevin has 37 years of experience in trading, risk management and consultancy. He has acted as an expert witness and been deposed in the US courts. Prior to joining Solum Financial Kevin worked at Chase Manhattan, Bear Stearns, Nat West and Royal Bank of Scotland. At Royal Bank of Scotland he was Global co-head of Counterparty Exposure Management responsible for the Pricing, Management and Trading of all counterparty risk activities. In addition Kevin was Global Head of STIRT, responsible for all Delta trading products in the short end of the curve. Previously at Bear Stearns and Chase Manhattan he was head of Sterling derivative trading. Kevin holds a BSc. Hons in Applied Science from Kingston University.

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Jon has 25 years of experience in credit derivatives, counterparty credit risk management and quantitative credit analytics. He was formerly Head of Quantitative Analytics at Barclays Capital, prior to which he was Global Head of Quantitative Credit Research at BNP-Paribas. Jon is the author of several books and articles, including “Counterparty Credit Risk, the new challenge for global financial markets”, published in 2009. Jon has authored expert witness reports for the US, Canadian and Australian courts and has been deposed in the US. He holds a PhD from Cambridge University.

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Jevgenij Teorovic

Senior Back End Developer

Jevgenij is a seasoned Java developer with over 10+ years of experience in the software development industry. He has worked for various companies, including those in the banking and finance sectors, gaining extensive knowledge and expertise. With a passion for coding and a commitment to staying updated with the latest industry trends, he excels in designing and implementing efficient Java solutions. Jevgenij holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Vilnius University.

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Donatas Zubavicius

Senior Back End Developer

Donatas is an experienced Java developer with 5+ years of expertise in the financial sector, with strong technical foundation and understanding of software development principles. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Vilnius University.

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Szymon has 8 years of experience within web development and has worked in a diverse range of industries, including Financial Services. Prior to joining Solum, he was a Full-Stack Web Developer at Baker Hughes (formerly GE Oil & Gas), working on cloud-based pipeline inspection and reporting software. Szymon specialises in large scale Angular applications, User Experience and cloud hosting services. Szymon holds a BEng degree from Aberystwyth University in Software Engineering.

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George has 5 years of experience within the financial industry and has worked with a diverse range of clients during numerous advisory mandates. George recently transitioned to becoming Product Manager, leveraging from his experience gained at Solum and interest in technology. George holds a BSc degree from Warwick University in Chemistry.

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Nathan joined Solum’s graduate program in 2021 as an analyst. He is now a key member of the development team at Solum. Nathan holds an MSc from the University of Bristol in Computer Science and a BSc in Economics.

Join Us

We are a team of forward thinking individuals with a combined passion to bring efficiencies and robustness to the financial services. We work hard but always efficiently. If you would like to join our team, please see our available positions below or contact us.

SENIOR JAVA DEVELOPER

About us

Solum, based in central London, are challenging financial organisations to address inefficient valuation control processes by adopting their software product, Xplain. Xplain is a user-friendly and efficient derivatives valuation control platform, built with modern, cloud-native architecture and a forward-thinking attitude.

Job Description

We are launching a financial software to address the inefficiencies surrounding OTC derivatives post-trade processes.

We are looking for a senior java developer/analyst programmer to lead the technology effort internally.

This is a senior role and you would have previously demonstrated the leadership of a small team of developers, whilst continuing to perform a majority proportion of hands-on development activity.

Overview

The candidate will work with the subject matter experts and the core development team across the full range of the Agile SDLC. A key area of focus will be understanding the cashflow calculation and risk engine. This is a complex pricing library that forms a core part of our system. Successful candidates would be expected to make technology changes, but also detailed business driven changes both within this, and the wider system. The candidate should have the ability to write efficient, clear code and be able to articulate what has been implemented and why, with the overarching responsibility for the delivery of new features and maintenance of the existing libraries. Experience of similar systems and technologies would be immensely useful.

The candidate should possess strong analytical skills, software engineering & computer science skills, as well as a logical approach to problem solving. They should be able to understand complex business requirements and translate them into technological solutions. They should be able to prioritise work with minimal supervision, be a problem solver at heart and be able to bring with them positivity, enthusiasm and a can-do attitude.

Qualification & Skills
Technical skills:

  • 5+ years hands on development in financial services.
  • 5+ years of experience with Java and Spring Boot.
  • NoSQL/MongoDB experience is highly desirable.
  • Containers (Dockers, Kubernetes) and cloud experience is an advantage.
  • Experience with the JavaScript/TypeScript, Angular and front-end tech stack is desirable, understanding basic principles is a must.
  • Agile development.
  • Familiarity with CI/CD and DevOps.
  • Experience with GitHub and Atlassian toolset.
  • Working knowledge of Linux.

Functional skills:

  • Financial instruments knowledge (Derivatives business is a strong plus).
  • Mathematical experience, be it a maths/physics bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) or having worked with mathematical risk models.

Soft skills:

  • Fluent in English (speaking and writing).
  • Outstanding problem solving skills.
  • Proactive, self-starter, autonomous.
  • Good team spirit.

Soft skills:

  • Strong architectural and engineering background with experience of delivery.
  • Strong Java skills.
  • Strong knowledge and previous experience in end-to-end design, development and subsequent support of financial services applications.
  • Familiarity and confidence working in a distributed agile development environment.
  • Someone who can drive / facilitate the requirements and development effort with the business.
Apply now

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