Investment Management Data Scientist, Senior Specialist

About Vanguard

More than 50 years ago, John C. Bogle had a vision to start an investment company that did things differently. A company with no external shareholders. Where all the profits were invested back into the business and used to lower costs. Evidently, it was as bold as it was brilliant. To this day, Vanguard Group still has no external shareholders. That means no share prices to protect, and no profits to generate for outside owners. 

Today, Vanguard is one of the world’s largest investment management companies, serving more than 50 million investors worldwide. For more than 25 years Vanguard Australia has been supporting individual investors, financial advisers, and superannuation members to achieve their long-term financial goals.

Team & Opportunity

Applied research solutions play a key role in supporting Vanguard's Investment Management strategies. In this role, you will be working as a Lead Quant Research Scientist aligned to technology deployment that supports the growth of solutions directly influencing Vanguard's Investment Management strategies for fixed income trading teams.

You will be part of a high-profile Applied R&D team enabling creative and impactful solutions in Fixed Income. This multinational research lab leads the research, development, and deployment of advanced ML solutions (deep learning, convex optimization, stochastic simulation, etc.) across several parts of the investment management process. This opportunity is best aligned to individuals with a proven track record of research leadership and project management. We are specifically looking for individuals with applied deep learning experience, and a high degree of comfort in quantitative trading that can lead diverse teams and deliver rigorous, systematic solutions.

Ideal Skill set:

• Significant experience in applied research settings leading multi-disciplinary teams and coordinating & executing long-horizon research scopes.
• Extensive experience building custom deep learning architectures to address specific problem statements
• Extensive experience in quantitative trading.
• Proficient with python in development environments such as SageMaker, Databricks, etc
• Experience creating rigorous evaluation frameworks with OOS, Sim, and back-test components and analyzing results
• Experience with fixed income investment management problems is preferred
• Participation or completion of the CFA or related financial knowledge is valuable
• Ability to read & reproduce research papers in computational settings
• Participation in systematic or quantitative workflows in Investment Management is a plus

Academic Background:

• Undergraduate degree in related STEM field(s) with Modeling work required
• Graduate Degree or equivalent industrial experience in applied research or engineering workflows preferred
• Strong coursework in mathematics, information theory, and other topics related to theoretical reasoning in ML is necessary
• Strong written and oral communication skills

Inclusion Statement

Vanguard’s continued commitment to diversity and inclusion is firmly rooted in our culture. Every decision we make to best serve our clients, crew (internally employees are referred to as crew), and communities is guided by one simple statement: “Do the right thing.”

We believe that a critical aspect of doing the right thing requires building diverse, inclusive, and highly effective teams of individuals who are as unique as the clients they serve. We empower our crew to contribute their distinct strengths to achieving Vanguard’s core purpose through our values.

When all crew members feel valued and included, our ability to collaborate and innovate is amplified, and we are united in delivering on Vanguard’s core purpose.

Our core purpose: To take a stand for all investors, to treat them fairly, and to give them the best chance for investment success.

How We Work

Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for the majority of our crew members, designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.