What makes a backend engineer strong for FX platforms
Trading infrastructure punishes generic backend engineers. Here are the signals that separate the engineers who can survive a Sev 1.
# What makes a backend engineer strong for FX platforms
FX broker engineering is a different sport. The latency budget is single-digit milliseconds, the audit requirements are real, and a Sev 1 incident is measured in client losses, not pager pages.
The signals that separate FX engineers from generic backend talent
### Low-latency intuition They can talk about hot-path code in the language of nanoseconds, not "feels fast". They know what their last system's p99 was and what they changed to get it there.
### Risk and money awareness They have shipped code that touches client funds. They reason about idempotency, exactly-once intent and audit trails as the default - not as edge cases they would handle "if we had time".
### MT4 / MT5 / FIX exposure Not theoretical knowledge - they have integrated or extended at least one of: MT4, MT5, cTrader, FIX gateway, bridge integration or liquidity routing.
### Regulated audit readiness They have shipped under an audit regime where every change is traceable, signed off and reversible.
Screening questions
- *"Describe the highest-volume system you have worked on. What failed, how did you detect it, and what did you change?"*
- *"How do you handle exactly-once intent in a system where the network can fail any time?"*
- *"Walk me through your incident response when a trade got booked twice."*
What we do at KICKFIND
We pre-screen for production payments / trading exposure, then back it up with evidence the client can verify in 30 minutes. [Submit a hiring brief](/submit-hiring-brief) to get a calibration call.