Forward Deployed Engineer, Commodities Trading
Cedar Peak PartnersAbout the role
Our client is one of the global merchant energy and commodities trading houses: physical and financial desks across Europe, Asia and the Americas, long-term assets behind them, and a management team that has decided the next phase of the business gets built on AI. This is one of the engineering seats that makes that real on the trading floor.
The seat
This is a forward deployed seat. You sit with the commercial teams, not in a central function. You find the workflow problems worth solving, design the fix, ship it from prototype to production, and feed what you learn back to the platform engineers who own the core stack. As the AI portfolio grows you help decide what gets built, in what order, and whether it is actually being used.
What you will build
Agentic tools for traders, analysts and operations: scoped with the desk, shipped by you
Extensions to the firm's in-house GenAI platform: connectors into trading systems and market data, MCP servers, tool use, and skills specific to the trading domain
Whatever the problem needs: LLMs and RAG for the unstructured work; forecasting and optimization for pricing, supply and demand, trade flows and operations
Trust: you explain to traders and senior management what a model can and cannot do, so they use it with confidence
The standard: reviews, evals, tooling decisions, and bringing other engineers up with you
What you bring
5+ years hands-on in software engineering, AI engineering, ML or data science
Fluent Python with proper engineering habits: modular code, tests, version control, review
Shipped GenAI work: prompting, RAG, tool use, agentic workflows, evaluation, and at least one orchestration framework (LangChain, LlamaIndex or similar)
Cloud experience, AWS preferred
A quantitative degree: computer science, math, statistics, data science or similar
Clear with both engineers and traders, comfortable working on your own, no politics
Real curiosity about how commodities markets and trading desks make money, and the appetite to learn the domain properly
Why this seat
Short path from idea to production: flat structure, small teams, decisions made quickly
Daily contact with trading desks and business units across the firm's main regions
An experienced, well-funded AI team with the backing of senior management
Competitive salary and full US benefits: medical, dental, vision, paid vacation, 401(k) with company contributions, life and disability coverage
Responsibilities
- Find workflow problems worth solving and design solutions
- Build agentic tools for traders and analysts
- Extend the firm's in-house GenAI platform
- Explain model capabilities to traders and management
- Conduct reviews and evaluations
Qualifications
- 5+ years in software engineering, AI engineering, ML or data science
- Fluent in Python with proper engineering habits
- Experience with GenAI work and orchestration frameworks
- Cloud experience, preferably AWS
- Quantitative degree in computer science, math, statistics, or data science
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance
- Paid vacation
- 401(k) with company contributions
- Life and disability coverage
Skills mentioned
About Cedar Peak Partners
Energy access and security is fundamental to economic prosperity. Cedar Peak Partners enables its most critical resource - people. We envision a future where energy access is universal, driving economic growth and improving the lives of communities worldwide. We believe the catalyst for affordable, reliable and accessible power is a diverse energy mix. We focus exclusively on the Power & Gas markets, providing search and talent advisory services across Origination, Trading and Market Analytics. By focusing solely on these three talent functions we deliver faster placements, deeper candidate pools and a consultative edge you will not find with generalists. Our clients benefit from a Partner who truly understands the synergy and importance between these three talent functions, and how they contribute to a reliable and accessible energy supply, serving societal needs.