Index Equity Technologist (Python), BlackRock Global Markets, Associate

BlackRock Global Markets and Index Investments (BGM) brings together BlackRock’s Index Investments, Cash Management, Global Trading, ETF Markets, Securities Lending, and Financing & Financial Resource Management businesses. Together, we provide clients with superior market access and index investment outcomes through:

• World class talent, operating at the intersection of investment insight, markets expertise, risk management and process design

• Technology at the heart of our processes, with in-business tech teams that create cutting-edge IP, providing an advantage in quality, scale, and risk control

• A focus on transforming markets, driving and advocating for more accessible, resilient, and transparent markets to deliver more choice and lower costs for investors

About our team:

BlackRock’s Index Equity (IE) team handles more than $7.5 trillion in global index equity assets across Global Developed Markets, Emerging Markets, Commodities and REITs. The group offers index equity investors one of the industry's broadest arrays of investment choices. Our clients include corporate pension plans, public pension plans, central banks, sovereign wealth funds and other institutional investors.

Job Purpose/Background:

The Index Equity Technology team within Index Equity is seeking to expand in order to improve business efficiency and scalability. This business-side role entails working with Portfolio Managers, other members of the Index Equity team and the BlackRock technology teams, in order to build a best-in-class index investment engine. The person filling this role will facilitate the development and maintenance of portfolio engineering algorithms for index investment processes. The person filling this role will act as a Quantitative Developer, partnering with Portfolio Managers and technologists to design, develop and enhance portfolio engineering algorithms that support index portfolio construction, optimisation, trading and risk management processes.

A successful candidate will be able to understand the index equity portfolio construction process and will be able to reliably build and deliver working code that serves the immediate need, is robust and extensible enough to evolve and support scale as our business grows.

Key Responsibilities:

• Implement an innovative platform, primarily in Python, for the development, deployment, maintenance and monitoring of portfolio engineering algorithms

• Maintain the Algo ecosystem with Python engineering principles to keep it aligned with changes.

• Enthusiastic and ready to learn and use cutting end tech like AI

• Apply quantitative analysis, statistical techniques and large-scale data processing to improve portfolio management workflows, investment outcomes and operational efficiency.

• Identify, and implement, opportunities for improvement of operational processes using data analytics

• Understand the BlackRock technology platform and integrate portfolio engineering algorithms into it

• Work with BlackRock technology teams that support IE, to ensure that they understand our requirements and build well-suited tools

Skills/Qualifications:

• 3+ years of relevant experience in Python programming/Algo engineering/Quantitative Development

• Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree or equivalent experience in computer science/engineering/quantitative field with strong computing skills

• Programming skills in Python (preferred) /Java with strong object-oriented skills

• Experience with SDLC including agile development methodologies, writing tests before code, version control and CI/CD tools

• Knowledge of Scientific Python stack, experience in dealing with large data sets and statistical processing

• Experience in applying mathematics and statistical techniques to tackle complex problems

• Experience working in investment management, trading or finance related fields is a plus

• Knowledge of equity risk models is a plus

• Excellent analytical, problem solving skills, attention to detail and an emphasis on precision

• Great teammate with high level of self-motivation and inquisitiveness

• Effective communication skills

• High degree of professional integrity, discretion and judgement