Quantitative Modeler (Python), Aladdin Financial Engineering, Vice President

About this role 

• BlackRock is one of the world’s preeminent asset management firms and a premier provider of global investment management, risk management and advisory services to institutional, intermediary, and individual investors around the world. BlackRock’s mission is to create a better financial future for our clients. We have a responsibility to be the voice of the investor, and we represent each client fairly and equally. Constant communication with a diverse team of partners strengthens us and delivers better results for our clients. Continuous innovation helps us bring the best of BlackRock to our clients. BlackRock offers a range of solutions — from rigorous fundamental and quantitative active management approaches aimed at maximizing outperformance to highly efficient indexing strategies designed to gain broad exposure to the world’s capital markets. Our clients can access our investment solutions through a variety of product structures, including individual and institutional separate accounts, mutual funds and other pooled investment vehicles, and the industry-leading iShares® ETFs. 

About Aladdin Financial Engineering (AFE): 

• Join a diverse and collaborative team of over 400 modelers and technologists in Aladdin Financial Engineering (AFE) within BlackRock Solutions, the business responsible for the research and development of Aladdin’s financial models. This group is also accountable for analytics production, enhancing the infrastructure platform, and delivering analytics content to portfolio and risk management professionals (both within BlackRock and across the Aladdin client community). The models developed and supported by AFE span a wide array of financial products covering equities, fixed income, commodities, derivatives, and private markets. AFE provides investment insights that range from an analysis of cash flows on a single bond, to the overall financial risk associated with an entire portfolio, balance sheet, or enterprise. 

Role Overview: 

• We are looking to hire a quantitative modeler (Vice President) to join our Portfolio Risk Modeling team.  This team builds and maintains risk models and analytics, including linear factor models, Value-at-Risk (VaR) methodologies, volatility and covariance matrix estimation, and portfolio stress testing & scenario analytics.  These models span a wide variety of asset classes including fixed income, equity, and private markets.  The models utilize sophisticated econometric/statistical methods, and are used by traders, portfolio managers and risk managers at BlackRock and Aladdin clients for risk management, portfolio construction, regulatory reporting, compliance and performance attribution.  

• This individual would have a solid foundation in basic quantitative techniques and knowledge of model governance practices. They should also have demonstrable project management skills as well as proven experience to work in a team environment as well as collaborating with senior modelers from other groups/regions. Strong communication and organizational skills are quite valuable to this role. This person is expected to join as an individual contributor and deliver on all aspects of model governance for our portfolio risk model suite and provide model governance representation to internal stakeholders and Aladdin clients. 

Key Responsibilities: 

• Contribute to governance for Aladdin portfolio risk models including (but not limited to) equities, fixed income, commodities, derivatives, etc. 

• Building and maintaining model governance controls, including (but not limited to) model performance monitoring, model documentation, model remediations and supporting internal & external client model validations 

• Communicate (verbally and in writing) with internal stakeholders and external clients on model performance regularly, investigate exceptional model performance, diagnose issues and conduct corrective remediations 

• Coordinate with and navigate through multiple teams and stakeholders while managing timelines 

• Backtesting, documenting, and guiding new models and methodologies through validation 

• Partner with engineering teams to integrate portfolio risk models into state-of-art production systems 

Qualifications 

• 6 -10  years of experience in quantitative field / statistical modeling. Experience with portfolio risk analytics and/or model governance is strongly preferred 

• Degree in a quantitative discipline – master’s degree in finance / economics / statistics / financial engineering / math finance / engineering 

• Knowledge of investments, portfolio management, econometrics, and empirical asset pricing 

• A solid foundation in quantitative techniques 

• Hands-on experience with statistical software (Python) and strong background in programming.  Intermediate to advanced proficiency with Python is strongly preferred 

• Experience with data handling (ETL, data joining with SQL, cleaning, processing, summarizing, descriptive analysis), and building and back-testing statistical and econometric models 

• Prior work experience in financial modeling (e.g., risk models, analytics, private markets) or data science and model deployment to production environment is a plus 

• Ability to work effectively with a team of highly motivated individuals 

• Time and project management skills 

• Proven track record of guiding junior talent 

• Positive attitude and ability to work both independently and as a part of a global team in a fast-paced environment 

• Excellent communication and presentation skills