Alpha Generation Technology | Financial Platform Engineer, Vice President

About this role

The Alpha Generation Technology helps BlackRock investment teams deliver market leading performance (alpha) to their clients. We partner with investment researchers to unlock data & develop predictive signals and strategies that are traded on BlackRock hedge funds and other active portfolios.

We are building a cloud-scale data and analytics platform to accelerate next-generation investment insights. The team has a global footprint with presence across Sydney, Singapore, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Budapest, London, New York, Mexico and San Francisco. Our investment partners include Systematic Active Equity & Fixed Income, Multi-Asset Strategies, Sustainability Strategies, and the Risk & Trading/Liquidity team. The team sits within BlackRock’s Aladdin Product Engineering organization.

As a Vice President, you will operate as a senior hands-on product engineer and technical leader in an investment engineering environment increasingly shaped by AI-enabled workflows. You will own business-critical quant products end-to-end — from problem framing and architecture through delivery, production operations, and continuous improvement.

You will partner closely with product managers, platform engineers, quantitative engineers, and investment teams to understand business requirements and build scalable, AI-ready product capabilities that power investment research and strategies. You will help define engineering standards, raise the bar for reliability and observability, and influence the technical roadmap for the overall product and platform.

You will work with elite investment professionals to build cutting-edge, high‑quality research data platform capabilities, including:

• Own the technical vision, roadmap and delivery for the Python based SDK and APIs that power investment research and alpha generation.
• Advance quant tooling as strategic capability layer enabling faster research, model development, backtesting and productionisation.
• Partner with researchers, model engineers, product managers and platform teams to understand pain points and translate them into scalable product capabilities
• Leverage AI-assisted development tools effectively, combining increased development velocity with full ownership of solution design, correctness, testing, and performance
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior engineers, contributing to long-term architecture, product strategy and engineering standards.
• Drive engineering excellence through AI-augmented development practices, strengthening code quality, design standards, developer productivity, and platform reliability through disciplined review and validation
• Evaluate, select, and implement new tools and frameworks to expand our platform capabilities.
• Foster a culture of product thinking, user empathy, engineering excellence, and close partnership with investment teams.

We value post‑graduate degree holders, but we also welcome individuals with equivalent commercial experience. If you bring a strong mix of the skills below, we would love to hear from you.

Core engineering

• 6+ years of experience building platforms, SDKs, APIs, or quant research tooling.
• Strong Python skills with experience building APIs, reusable libraries and scalable workflows
• Experience designing and operating cloud-native platforms, distributed systems, or modern analytics platforms.
• Strong architecture judgement: able to simplify complex systems into usable product interfaces.

• Strong understanding of modern data storage formats and architectures (e.g., Iceberg, Delta Lake) and cloud storage systems (e.g., Azure Blob or equivalent)
• Experience with distributed processing frameworks such as Spark, Ray or Dask.
• Deep understanding of cloud-native development practices (Azure preferred)

AI-enabled engineering mindset

• Ability to frame problems clearly before implementation
• Experience with or exposure to LLM/GenAI-enabled workflows, developer tools or analytics systems.
• Strong judgment when using AI tools, including the ability to validate, adapt, and productionize generated outputs
• Comfort operating in an environment where engineering impact is measured by outcomes, quality, and leverage, not volume of code written

Leadership & Domain alignment

• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to partner effectively with platform teams, quantitative researchers and investment stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to influence engineering standards and drive best practices
• Ability to mentor junior engineers, raise the technical bar, and create clarity in ambiguous problem spaces.
• Strong interest in financial markets, systematic investing, or quantitative research

• Aladdin, the investment platform used to manage more than $15 trillion of global assets.
• How to scale quantitative research and alpha model engineering across asset classes and regions.
• Contribute to high‑performing engineering teams in an AI‑augmented environment, while raising standards for correctness, stability, and long‑term maintainability.

Our benefits

To help you stay energized, engaged and inspired, we offer a wide range of employee benefits including: retirement investment and tools designed to help you in building a sound financial future; access to education reimbursement; comprehensive resources to support your physical health and emotional well-being; family support programs; and Flexible Time Off (FTO) so you can relax, recharge and be there for the people you care about.

Our hybrid work model

BlackRock’s hybrid work model is designed to enable a culture of collaboration and apprenticeship that enriches the experience of our employees, while supporting flexibility for all. Employees are currently required to work at least 4 days in the office per week, with the flexibility to work from home 1 day a week. Some business groups may require more time in the office due to their roles and responsibilities. We remain focused on increasing the impactful moments that arise when we work together in person – aligned with our commitment to performance and innovation. As a new joiner, you can count on this hybrid model to accelerate your learning and onboarding experience here at BlackRock.

About BlackRock

At BlackRock, we are all connected by one mission: to help more and more people experience financial well-being.  Our clients, and the people they serve, are saving for retirement, paying for their children’s educations, buying homes and starting businesses. Their investments also help to strengthen the global economy: support businesses small and large; finance infrastructure projects that connect and power cities; and facilitate innovations that drive progress.

This mission would not be possible without our smartest investment – the one we make in our employees. It’s why we’re dedicated to creating an environment where our colleagues feel welcomed, valued and supported with networks, benefits and development opportunities to help them thrive.

For additional information on BlackRock, please visit @blackrock | Twitter: @blackrock | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/blackrock

BlackRock is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.  We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to age, disability, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation and other protected characteristics at law.