Internship - Software Engineer - Distributed Compute Platform Revamp

ABOUT CFM

Founded in 1991, we are a global quantitative and systematic asset management firm applying a scientific approach to finance to develop alternative investment strategies that create value for our clients.
We value innovation, dedication, collaboration, and the ability to make an impact. Together, we create a stimulating environment for talented and passionate experts in research, technology, and business to explore new ideas and challenge existing assumptions.

INTERNSHIP – SOFTWARE ENGINEER – DISTRIBUTED COMPUTE PLATFORM REVAMP (6 months)

*** Context
In the Portfolio Platform team, we maintain an internal platform used by several teams to run distributed workflows across different backends (Slurm, Ray, AWS, local). This platform has three main components:
- An API to define execution workflows (tasks, dependencies, resource requirements, constraints)
- An orchestration server that schedules and runs submitted workflows
- A web server for real-time monitoring and operational control

As part of CFM's cloud migration initiative, this platform is being progressively modernized to seamlessly run in a cloud environment. We are currently reworking some of it's components
to be Cloud friendly, and at the same time improving other parts to be more user and developer friendly.

*** Project and responsibilities
- Challenge the existing DAG creation API, propose and design a new user friendly interface, such as a declarative approach.
- Revamp the UI to improve user experience and interface responsiveness, as well as ease of feature integration.
- Orchestrator: Improve memory management, fault tolerance (retries, timeouts, out of memory), and DAG metadata storage.
- Quality & delivery: Comprehensive tests and stability benchmarks, documentation, and user guides.
- Stretch goal: Simplify/consolidate connectors to distributed backends (Slurm/Ray/AWS).

*** Why this internship is exciting
- Impact: Power critical research and production workflows used across multiple teams and end-users.
- Technical challenges: DAG compilation and scheduling; concurrency and resource-aware execution; large-scale fault tolerance and idempotency; built-in observability; real-time web UX over high-volume events.
- End-to-end scope: From API design through runtime robustness to UI/UX, with room to propose architectural changes.

*** Your profile
- Engineering school with specialty in Software Engineering (Master’s level)
- Strong Python skills and solid understanding of programming best practices
- Comfortable with Unix, Git, testing, and CI/CD practices
- Interest in parallel computing, reliability, and performance
- Analytical, autonomous, and a good communicator

*** Nice to have
- Familiarity with a Python Web API framework and/or a JavaScript front-end framework
- Familiarity with AWS or another cloud provider

*** What we offer
- A high-impact project with strong mentorship and code reviews
- An environment where you can propose and implement architectural changes
- The opportunity to ship to production and influence the platform roadmap beyond the internship

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES STATEMENT

We are continuously striving to be an equal opportunity employer and we prohibit any discrimination based on sex, disability, origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, race, or religion. We believe that our diversity, breadth of experience, and multiple points of view are among the leading factors in our success.
CFM is a signatory of the Women Empowerment Principles.
 

FOLLOW US

Follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn or visit our website to find out more about CFM.