Optiver's engineering organization shifted from a fragmented regional 'unblock yourself' culture (1986-2020) to global platforms built for the whole company (2020-present), which was necessary because fragmentation into different regional technologies and duplicated services became too costly.

Optiver's tech went through two eras: regional systems where local teams moved fast and 'blocked themselves out' of duplication, then global platforms built for scale. The downside of fragmentation and duplication grew to outweigh the speed benefit, driving a consolidation started around 2023. ✦ AI generated

The Pragmatic Engineer · The Pragmatic Engineer · 2026-08-11 · original ↗

Regional systems ("unblock yourself": 1986-2020): internal systems and platforms were built to serve local needs, such as building support for a market. Systems built exclusively for the US, Europe, or Asia were common. Global platforms ("build for the whole company": 2020-present): Optiver recently started to build new systems to work globally across their platform. This global focus is also why the company is investing a lot more in its platform engineering arm.

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