If you’re looking for the most interesting jobs in financial services technology in London, those may not be at hedge funds or even at the sorts of electronic trading firms that are known for their kindness and generosity to engineers. They might just be at Rothesay Life. 

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Rothesay Life, known now as simply Rothesay, is an insurance firm. It was part of Goldman Sachs until 2013 and was completely divested by the firm in 2017. However, eight years later, it still has Goldman-style pulling power.

Seth Osher, one of the seven top technologists to quietly disappear from Brevan Howard, since the arrival of Mike Sanders from JPMorgan last September, quietly arrived at Rothesay. Osher, who didn’t respond to a request to comment for this article, is Rothesay’s new head of enterprise technology. At Brevan Howard, he was head of credit technology and then head of credit and macro technology. In a previous existence, he was head of fixed income IT at HSBC.

Rothesay has other illustrious technologists too. The CTO there is Stephen Pain, a former head of fixed income technology at Citadel. The head of business engineering is Gary Gough, who previously spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs. Matthew Brown, a principal engineer who joined in 2023 also came from Citadel. Jean-Jacques Bouzaglou, an engineering manager, comes from Eisler and Rokos.

Rothesay’s appeal is about more than the calibre of its CVs, though. It’s also known for having one of the appealing technology stacks in finance. This is the result of Project Quest, a multi-year initiative launched by Pain to modernise technology at the firm. Applications have been rebuilt in a combination of C++ and Rust. Current job advertisements indicate that stage 1 of the project is now complete; stage 2 has just begun.

Reviews on Glassdoor confirm Rothesay’s appeal. The culture is “amazing” says one full stack engineer. Rothesay didn’t comment for this article but speaking off the record, insiders say the culture is good and the pace of life tolerable. Complaints on Glassdoor about working hours might hold if you come from an insurance background, says one, but not if you’ve spent time in a bank.

Rothesay’s only downside might be its pay. This is less than is offered at banks and hedge funds. But you’ll get to code in Rust and to leave no later than 6pm. “We’re paid better than technologists at other insurance firms,” says one insider. “For the hours worked, it’s very fair.”

The final element of Rothesay’s appeal concerns the location of its staff. While both banks and funds have been outsourcing roles to India, Rothesay’s developers are all in the UK. “We’re 550 people all in one building,” says one. “No outsourcing, no offshoring. When you want someone you can walk to their desk.” 

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