Java: How Low Can You Go — 2nd Edition
Java: How Low Can You Go?
Low-latency design for RFQ, HFT, systematic trading, built with AI — SmartMCPs, RAG.
What is this book about?
This book is a practical guide to ultra-low-latency Java engineering for high-frequency trading, RFQ systems, market making, and systematic trading in banks and hedge funds. It covers the complete trading lifecycle, including acquisition, crossing, liquidation, and execution.
Rather than theory, it focuses on hands-on techniques used in production — from JVM tuning, concurrency, and off-heap design to CPU, Unix, and network optimization — showing how modern trading firms are pushing Java toward C++-level performance.
The book also explores AI-assisted development and the use of MCP and RAG to build, understand, and maintain complex trading applications. It goes beyond using AI as a coding assistant, showing how to create an MCP tool suite and a “second brain” for Copilot — providing persistent knowledge and context to understand, develop, and maintain large-scale trading systems.
Who is this book for?
This book is for anyone working with, or looking to enter, high-performance financial technology — from hands-on developers to architects. Developers preparing for low-latency Java interviews will find real interview questions and practical guidance, while senior engineers and technology leaders can focus on the architectural concepts without diving into every implementation detail.
Developers from outside finance will find it a practical introduction to trading technology and a path into financial systems. And for developers looking to excel in AI-assisted software engineering, the final chapters cover MCP, RAG, and autonomous development workflows built specifically for large-scale trading applications.
What’s new in the 2nd edition
The 2nd edition expands the book with five new chapters, covering topics rarely discussed in depth within the software engineering world of investment banking.
The first two new chapters walk through the complete architecture of systematic trading in investment banks — covering Acquisition, Liquidation, and Crossing businesses — explaining how trading systems operate end-to-end and how market data and orders flow through them.
The final three chapters focus on modern AI-assisted software development: Model Context Protocol (MCP), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), AI agents, and intelligent development workflows that help engineers build, understand, debug, and maintain large-scale trading applications more efficiently.