Ultra-Low Latency Aggregator & eFX solution platform that grows with your ambition

FOUNDER & CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

WONG JOO SENG

Wong Joo Seng is founder and CEO of Spark Systems. A company he conceptualised and started up in April 2016. Spark’s focus is on building the next generation of FX trading platforms that are ultra-fast, resilient, low latency and cost efficient. In addition to being a recipient of an MAS grant, Spark Systems also raised USD8.7 million in a Series A investment round (with venture capital as well as strategic investors) in 2017.

Joo Seng is also a Venture Capitalist and is a Venture Partner with both Vickers Venture Partners as well as an Investment Partner with True Global Ventures. Wong, Joo Seng is also co-founder of M-DAQ; Jan 2010 and the company’s founding Chairman (Non Executive). He assumed the role of Executive Chairman in Jan 2014 and led the company to a successful Series C investment round with a major e-commerce company in Nov 2015 with a valuation of $250 million.

Prior to M-DAQ, Joo Seng was the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of G K Goh Financial Services (S) Private Ltd., then a member firm of the Singapore Exchange – Derivatives Trading (“SGX- DT”). G K Goh Financial Services (S) Private Ltd. is the wholly owned securities & derivative brokerage and foreign exchange trading subsidiary of G K Goh Holdings Ltd; a listed company based in Singapore. He joined in 1998 and was instrumental in the start-up of the unit as its founding CEO, a role he continued in until his departure in Jan 2014 when he joined M-DAQ as Executive Chairman. In his time there, he grew GKGFS from a new company into one of the largest institutional foreign exchange trading houses in Asia.

Joo Seng started his career in 1987 in United Overseas Bank Singapore. There he was dealing in precious metals as a trader in Gold, Silver and Platinum over-the-counter Spot, Forwards and Options as well as exchange traded Futures and Options.

Thereafter he joined Republic National Bank of New York, Singapore; now part of the HSBC, as Vice President – Foreign Exchange & Precious Metals Options. At Republic National Bank of New York, he was responsible for interbank price-making and risk management of the bank’s foreign exchange and precious metal options portfolio in Asia, as part of a global options risk management team with centers in New York, London and Singapore.

He subsequently joined Bank of New Zealand in Wellington, New Zealand as Manager – Foreign Exchange Options where he was overall in charge of the currency options desk. His responsibilities included the strategic positioning of the bank’s global currency options portfolio and all price-making activities to both retail & institutional clients of the bank as well as to the interbank market at large.

He returned to Singapore to take up the position of Head of Treasury at TLB Bullion and Futures, the wholly owned derivative brokerage arm of Tat Lee Bank Singapore, prior to joining G K Goh to start up and run G K Goh Financial Services (S) Private Ltd. in 1998.

Joo Seng holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Mathematics from the National University of Singapore. He is also a member of Mensa Singapore, the local chapter of Mensa International, and was the society’s Vice President.

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER

YE TING SONG

Prior to Spark Systems, in 2013 Ting Song worked at “buy side” US hedge fund Pine River Capital Management in Hong Kong, where he designed and built from scratch a bespoke state-of-the-art algorithm electronic trading system, and managed intraday trade strategies and executions.

He first entered the world of FX electronic trading in 2009, at Barclays Capital in London, where he was a senior quant developer for Barclay’s bespoke Algorithmic Trading System (BATS). The BATS team was responsible for providing automated pricing and electronic risk management for the award-winning Barclay’s FX e-commerce platform BARX – it was one of the top three single-dealer platforms in the world at the time.

Previous to Hong Kong, in 2011 he was a FX Algorithmic Trading Strategist at the “Sell Side” investment bank – JP Morgan, in Singapore, where he was responsible for developing the electronic pricing of Asian and NDF currencies on the bank’s e-commerce FX platform, including building and supporting the pricing infrastructure and auto risk management.

Before his return to Asia in 2011, Ting Song has already built a distinguished career having worked in London for over 10 years. He first entered the world of FX electronic trading in 2009, at Barclays Capital in London, where he was a senior quant developer for Barclay’s bespoke Algorithmic Trading System (BATS). The BATS team was responsible for providing automated pricing and electronic risk management for the award-winning Barclay’s FX e-commerce platform BARX – it was one of the top three single-dealer platforms in the world at the time.

Ting Song’s first crack at banking industry was at UBS in 2007, where he was associate director and led a team of high calibre developers to design and deliver a Java/Oracle-based enterprise data solution, as part of a high-profile bank-wide strategic integration framework initiative.

After his graduation from Trinity College, University of Cambridge with a degree in Computer Science in 2000, Ting Song started his career in telecoms during its boom in the early 2000s. He later moved into the consultancy industry and became technical architect and principal consultant with the boutique UK firm Detica, now BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, where he led technical teams and managed consultancy projects such as CASE Management System for the UK government and customer insight project for telecom company T-Mobile.

CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER

JASON WANG KEE HUAT

As Chief Operations Officer at Spark Systems, Jason Wang is tasked to manage the day-to-day operations of the business, handle the upstream relationships with the liquidity providers on the platform as well as oversee the sales and marketing functions of the business.

Jason has a long and illustrious career in FX and FX sales. He has joined Spark Systems from KGI Futures, where he was Head, Institutional Sales covering a vast geography including Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Korea, Japan, India and Australia. Prior to that, he was the Head of FX Sales in Flextrade, covering a similar geography and targeting clients looking at FX Trading Solutions, White Label and FX Treasury Solutions.

Before Flextrade, he was Vice President, Sales for Hotspot FX at Knight Capital Group focused on client acquisition and account management for the same wide reach and geography, promoting Hotspot FX’s ECN Liquidity. Clients included Hedge Funds, Bank Trading Desk and Broker Dealers. He was also responsible for strategic alliances between Prime Brokers and other FX trading platforms.

Prior to Flextrade, Jason was with Standard Chartered Bank in Advanced Channel Solution Sales. Other institutions that Jason has worked with include Saxo Capital Markets, Barclays and Accenture where he was the integration and interface team lead for the IRAS (Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore) Project, one of the biggest NET project in Asia.

Jason holds a Bachelor of Computing with Merit from the National University of Singapore.

ADVISOR

ALAIN KAMAGI

Alain is Managing Partner at UNTL, a leading global capital markets expert specializing in foreign exchange. The firm was founded by professionals with over 35 years of combined foreign exchange and capital markets experience in major financial institutions.

Prior to co-founding UNTL, Alain was Managing Director at HSBC Bank U.S.A., where he established and led a team which covered Central Banks, Foreign Pension Funds, Multinational Corporations, Hedge Funds, Proprietary Desks and Family Offices. In that role, he also assembled and spearheaded a multi-product team responsible for cross selling FX and Fixed Income products to international institutional and family office clientele.

Alain graduated from the University of Houston with a BA in Finance and possesses an MBA from the C.T. Bauer College of Business, University of Houston.

ADVISOR

MERVYN FONG

Mervyn has had a distinguished career spanning over 36 years with leading financial institutions and industry associations. As an Advisory Board Member of Spark Systems, Mervyn brings extensive knowledge in investment banking, treasury & capital markets origination, structuring, sales & trading, and strategic management, making him a valuable resource to Spark System’s operations.

He started his career at London-based Samuel Montagu & Co Limited as a merchant banker. Following its acquisition by the HSBC Group, Mervyn moved to HSBC where he would eventually spend a total of 26 years holding various senior management positions including Managing Director and Head of Treasury and Capital Markets. From the firm’s regional hub in Singapore, he was responsible for HSBC’s trading, sales, treasury and capital market operations. Although he retired from HSBC in 2008, Mervyn rejoined the HSBC Group in 2016 as an Independent Non-Executive Director and Chairman of the Board Risk Committee at HSBC Bank (Singapore) Limited.

After retiring from HSBC in 2008, Mervyn spent the next decade as the Managing Director of ACI Singapore; the industry association for financial markets professionals in Singapore. He also served on the Global Council, Committee for Professionalism, and Board of Education of ACI – The Financial Markets Association, the largest wholesale financial markets industry association representing ACI members from over 60 countries. Mervyn was also a past Chairman of the Singapore Investment Banking Association.

Apart from his professional career, Mervyn serves actively as a member of the Executive Board and Vice Chairman of the Board of Finance of the Trinity Annual Conference (TRAC), representing the 21 English churches in the Methodist Church in Singapore.

Mervyn graduated from the University of Birmingham with a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) and also holds an MBA from the National University of Singapore.

SENIOR JAVA DEVELOPER

Singapore | Fulltime

• Build best in class low latency, high performance electronic trading system.
• Develop distributed and scalable solution for market connectivity gateways using FIX or other financial protocol in a very low latency environment/
• Continuous improving tools for performance tracking, monitoring and reporting on suit of trading applications.
• Communication with sales and clients about new feature requirement and participate in solutioning.

Educational Background and Experience

• Degree educated in an Engineering subject
• Minimum 5 years of server side core java development experience

Required Skills

• Advanced programing knowledge in Core Java and multithreading
• Competent in low latency, high performance server side development
• Knowledge with FIX or other financial transaction protocols
• Knowledge in development lifecycle and build tools such as Git, Maven, Jira, Jenkins etc
• Knowledge in open source libraries and frameworks such as Spring framework, apache commons, Disruptor etc
• Working knowledge of Linux / UNIX, bash or Perl or scripting skills
• Working knowledge of SQL databases, queries and stored procedures
• Self-starter, good work ethics, resourceful and problem solver, being able to gain initiative, work independently and produce high quality solution

Additional Requirements

• Knowledge of financial markets and financial transactions such as Forex, Equities, Futures
• Skilled in high performance, low latency java development

Interested candidates, please send your resume to hr@sparksystems.sg and indicate the job title in subject field.

CLIENT SERVICES SPECIALIST
(NIGHT SHIFT)

Singapore | Fulltime

Responsibilities

• Perform daily system health checks.
• Provide 1st and 2nd level technical and functional support for client queries and issues over phone and email.
• Research problems thoroughly, test solutions and make recommendations to clients.
• React to critical issues on a timely basis i.e. troubleshoot, investigate and escalate (if necessary) issues and create or apply appropriate solutions to immediate issues.
• Troubleshoot problems across a wide range of technical skills including Unix, SQL, XML, FIX and Java.
• Provide assistance in our product and explaining processes in accordance with internal procedures.
• Provide project management for onboarding of (i) Client setups and (ii) Bank connections.
• Provide weekend support for deployment and post-checks.
• Configure demo environments for sales.
• Maintain awareness of relevant technical and product trends with self-learning and job shadowing.
• Work across teams to continually provide feedback, improve product, and drive future innovation.

Required Skills

• Experience working in a Technical Support environment with excellent customer service skills.
• Basic understanding of FX market and/or a desire to learn FX.
• Ability to communicate effectively and professionally, both verbally and in writing with customers and colleagues at all levels of technical and non-technical skill sets.
• Knowledge on UNIX command line, SQL or Java programming is a plus.

Qualifications

• Able to work NIGHT shifts
• Minimum Diploma in Computer Studies or related discipline.
• Basic knowledge of Linux environment.
• At least 2 years of experience in support related fields is required.
• Knowledge of FX is a strongly preferred. If not, knowledge in other financial asset class is helpful.
• A positive and helpful attitude to serve customers and assist colleagues.
• Ability to multi-task, prioritize and deliver in a mission critical / time pressured environment.
• Someone who is undeterred and would not give up easily.
• Proactive with good analytical and organization skills.
• Positive work attitude, motivated and resilient in tough situations.
• A drive to learn and master new technologies and techniques.

Interested candidates, please send your resume to hr@sparksystems.sg and indicate the job title in subject field.

SOFTWARE QA ENGINEER

Singapore | Fulltime

Seeing the challenges of FX today with high latency and rejection rates, fragmented marketplace and outdated technology, Spark Systems sets out to build a robust trading platform designed for low-latency access to worldwide FX liquidity with smart algorithmic execution, reducing trading costs for our clients. We are also delivering our next-generation automated data-driven decision tools to help our clients discover market opportunities with deep tech and data analytics developed on our platform.

Job Overview

• Involved in the whole development life cycle
• Test case design and planning
• Perform Manual testing
• Bug analysis and tracking
• Setting up and maintenance of a testing environment
• Continuous improvement of the testing process and testing quality and efficiency

Educational Background and Experience

• Bachelor degree or above in engineering, computer science or other related fields
• At least 2-3 years of working experience in software test development

Required Skills

• Have a deep understanding of Manual test methodologies and principles
• Proficient in test procedures and test case design methods can take the initiative to technical research
• Highly Experienced with testing tools such as Jira, TestRail, Git, TestNG, CI/CD pipelines, etc
• Strong logical thinking ability, negotiation ability, and conflict management ability;
• Good at teamwork, understand and adapt to changes, take results and actions as the criterion, and strive for success.

Additional Requirements

• Familiar with Linux or Unix operating system
• Familiar with at least one programming language such as C/C++/Java
• Familiar with at least one UI automation framework
• Familiar with FIX message
• Experiences in database and SQL

Interested candidates, please send your resume to hr@sparksystems.sg and indicate the job title in subject field.

BUSINESS ANALYST

Singapore | Fulltime

Seeing the challenges of FX today with high latency and rejection rates, fragmented marketplace and outdated technology, Spark Systems sets out to build a robust trading platform designed for low-latency access to worldwide FX liquidity with smart algorithmic execution, reducing trading costs for our clients. We are also delivering our next-generation automated data-driven decision tools to help our clients discover market opportunities with the deep tech and data analytics we have on our platform. As an early member of the firm you will be involved from the beginning of building a truly innovative product, and be duly rewarded with a fast-track career.

Responsibilities

• Work with business users to elicit and validate business needs for both new projects and change requests.
• Analyze user requirements and identify gaps within the system and translate them into functional and technical specifications.
• Facilitate requirements workshops to engage various stakeholders such as front office, middle office, back office, compliance etc to ensure project meets business needs.
• Document management – clear and concise requirements ensuring input from all relevant parties, with proper sign off and effective change and version control.
• Drive day to day operational aspects of project management –this includes driving prioritization process, tracking tasks assigned to teams, delivery coordination to meet project schedule, quality and budget.
• Engage external and internal stakeholders to meet project timeline – primarily client users, sales, engineering and QA teams, working closely with all to ensure effective and efficient implementation.
• Support user acceptance testing such as problem resolution, tracking, escalation and closure.
• Execute implementation activities and provide post implementation support.
• Lead and manage issues during UAT/Sprints to ensure all defects are tracked to closure.

Qualifications

• 3-6 years IT business analyst and project management experience within the banking industry.
• Diploma/Degree in Information Systems, Computer Science, Engineering or related discipline.
• Business knowledge of Forex or other financial asset classes is a plus. Good understanding of Foreign Exchange (FX) products and trade process such as trade entry, confirmation and settlement.
• Strong written and verbal communication, including technical writing skills.
• Ability to work independently and multi-task in a fast-paced environment.
• Proactive personality with good analytical and organization skills.
• Familiar with Agile values, principles, processes and methods such as iterative and incremental development, continuous integration, test-driven development, unit testing, code refactoring and Scrum ceremonies. Knowledge of Jira Tracking Tool is a plus.

Interested candidates, please send your resume to hr@sparksystems.sg and indicate the job title in subject field.

GUI DEVELOPER

Singapore | Fulltime

Develop top grade trading application GUI connected to backend trading engine with the state-of-art in-house built transport protocol, for front office trading desks.

• Develop UI tools/dashboards to track performance, provide first-level analysis, visualizing, monitoring and reporting for suite of server-side applications
• Extensive experience in developing application front-end GUIs, thick clients.
• Strong UI programming skills in Java or C#
  • Proficient in one or more GUI development frameworks such as WPF, Swing or Java FX
  • Solid knowledge of MVVM design patterns and other client-server design patterns
  • Highly skilled in developing responsive and interactive applications
  • Experiencing in any of modern web framework is a plus.
• Proficient in CSS style sheets for customizing UI elements
• Good understanding of object-oriented Analysis and Design

Interested candidates, please send your resume to hr@sparksystems.sg and indicate the job title in subject field.

MOBILE DEVELOPER

Singapore | Fulltime

Seeing the challenges of FX today with high latency and rejection rates, fragmented marketplace and outdated technology, Spark Systems sets out to build a robust trading platform designed for low-latency access to worldwide FX liquidity with smart algorithmic execution, reducing trading costs for our clients. We are also delivering our next-generation automated data-driven decision tools to help our clients discover market opportunities with the deep tech and data analytics we have on our platform. As an early member of the firm you will be involved from the beginning of building a truly innovative product, and be duly rewarded with a fast-track career.

Responsibilities

• Develop top grade trading mobile applications (iOS and Android) connected to backend trading engine
• Implement mechanism to monitor mobile application performance and continuously improve them on both code and user experience
• Gain first-hand knowledge to cutting edge and class leading technology for financial trading solutions

Educational Background and Experience

• Degree educated in an Engineering subject
• 2+ years of mobile development experience

Qualifications

• Proficient in mobile application development (iOS and Android)
• Strong UI programming skills in Swift and Java/Kotlin
• Understanding on mobile application architecture to deliver reusable codebase and scalable application
• Highly skilled in developing responsive and interactive applications
• Knowledge of Apple’s and Android design principles and application interface
• Familiar with code versioning tools, eg. Git.
• Familiarity with push notifications, APIs and cloud messaging
• Self-starter, good work ethics, being able to gain initiative, work independently and produce high quality solutions
• Trading system UI development experience and knowledge of financial industry is desired

Interested candidates, please send your resume to hr@sparksystems.sg and indicate the job title in subject field.

INFRA INTERN

Singapore | Fulltime

As a member of Infrastructure Team, you will have a chance to work and learn with experience people that has been working on the IT Industry for a number of years. You’ll be working together with Infra Team to build a monitoring system that is close to a real time monitoring system. You’ll have a chance to learn how cutting-edge technologies works for a low latency sensitive system.

Responsibilities

• Assist the Infrastructure team to maintain hardware, software and other systems
• Participate in Infrastructure Operations
• Organize and maintain IT resources

Requirements

• Must be in academic pursuit of Computer Science, InfoTech or related field
• Must have basic understanding on Windows/Linux/Unix Environments
• Basic understanding on network concepts preferred
• Ability to work well in teams
• Strong work ethic and attention to details

Benefits

• Gain hands-on experience in advanced Infrastructure Technology
• Shadowing and training experience with knowledgeable professionals
• Opportunity to attend technology networking events
• A chance to learn how these cutting-edge technologies works on Infrastructure environment using the below tools.
  • RedHat Enterprise 7
  • Nagios XI Enterprise Edition – for monitoring system level events, like usage of [CPU,Memory,Disks,Load,Users]
  • Cacti – for monitoring network latency
  • Smokeping – for monitoring network latency
  • VMware vRealize Operation – for operations management across our virtual environment
  • Ansible Automation– for automating system tasks and VM deployments

Interested candidates, please send your resume to hr@sparksystems.sg and indicate the job title in subject field.