Portfolio Manager, Sovereign

About Nascent…

Founded in 2020, Nascent exists to build, expand, and capture opportunity, in open markets and permissionless technologies. Building from a base of permanent capital, we deploy assets across a range of both liquid and long-term strategies that ensure we are among the most active users of the open financial system we are helping to build. We've made venture investments in 50+ early-stage teams that we believe have the potential to create substantive change, expand boundaries, and find new horizons. We are consistently on the hunt for the most competitive and curious minds exploring the edges of the crypto ecosystem and leverage our hyper flexible structure to accelerate ideas into fully deployed strategies.

About Sovereign

Sovereign is a leading-edge proprietary trading fund at the forefront of innovation and intellectual property (IP) rights incubated within Nascent. Sovereign is building a unique approach to IP that enables individuals to retain full rights to the IP they create, ensuring value alignment between the creator and the company. This distinctive approach permits researchers the autonomy to potentially spin-off their IP into an independent entity, of which Sovereign will have an option to acquire 20%.

This approach minimizes the need for conventional employment limitations and constraints, offering increased slack. Our goal is to assemble a team of high-variance individuals, affording them the time, freedom, and motivation to discover and attempt their visions.

In the context of financial markets, higher-variance can lead to extreme results—from wild successes to uninvestable failures.

This process also produces uncorrelated results, creating an ideal environment for debate in a field where intellectual honesty is a prerequisite. Variance will grow when individuals are unconstrained. We aim to build a lab where diversity of ideas obtained through independent exploration leads to quality collaborations and discussions.

The Opportunity

At Sovereign, our Portfolio Managers are empowered as independent researchers, leading their own innovative projects to create profitable intellectual property. This IP is primarily owned by the researcher, granting them the freedom to leave Sovereign and leverage their creations on their own terms. We offer a unique “hedge fund-incubator” environment, providing you with unparalleled freedom, resources, and flexibility to thrive and and pursue your vision.

Responsibilities

• Generate profitable intellectual property with limited direction but ample support.
• Lead the creative and iterative processes to produce this IP.

Potential Projects

• Any trading approaches that can realistically lead to live evaluation of profitability in less than a year.
• For an applicant with a forecasting tournament background, a potential project could involve deriving binary questions from investment theses sourced from various sources (SeekingAlpha, 13F filings, etc.) and constructing a portfolio based on probability assessments.

Requirements

• Proof of competence is preferred. This refers to accomplishments that, preferably accomplished independently, showcase distinct capability. For instance:
  • Technical contributions to a notable GitHub Repo.
  • Top placements in major competitions (e.g., Kaggle Master, Top 10 Manifold Markets).
  • Interesting research made public, especially as first author.
  • Having non-consensus opinions and the depth of understanding to defend them.

Our Team & Culture

At Nascent, we are an interdisciplinary team of investors, builders & creators, capable of achieving more together than we can as individuals. We offer the opportunity to contribute to building the future global economic system with a world-class team and culture that pairs the freedom to explore, experiment & play with a competitive drive to win. We invest in our people by providing the autonomy to build, coupled with accountability & honest feedback to help learn, grow, perform & win. We’re a fully distributed team that understands the value of in-person time—we host two team retreats per year and encourage team members to come together for more frequent in-person work.

Principles that drive our team & work

• Compete to win 
• Own your shit 
• Explore, experiment, play
• Always be building
• Seek and speak truth

What We Offer

At Nascent, we offer a competitive total compensation package heavily weighted toward bonus, ensuring that when we perform at our best and the firm wins we all win.

• The opportunity to learn, experiment and build in an entrepreneurial environment
• Comprehensive health benefits package including dental, vision, and life
• Generous paid parental leave & supported return to work
• Annual Health & Wellness Stipend of up to $1,000
• Retirement plan matching contributions
• Open vacation policy as well as flexible work hours and location
• Access to our internal performance coaching, technical experts and support for continuing your skill development and growth
• Team activities and bi-annual in-person team retreats

We are an equal opportunity employer and celebrate diversity and differences of perspectives. We do not discriminate on the basis of any status, inclusive of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.