JOE Listings (Job Openings for Economists)

August 1, 2015 - January 31, 2016

Wealthfront

This listing is inactive.
Research
Quantitatiave Researcher, Finance / Economics

JOE ID Number: 2015-02_111454723
Date Posted: 11/08/2015
Date Inactive: 01/31/2016
Position Title/Short Description
Title: Quantitatiave Researcher, Finance / Economics
Section: Full-Time Nonacademic
Location: Palo Alto, California, UNITED STATES
JEL Classification: G -- Financial Economics
Keywords:
Finance
Economics
Financial Economics
Financial Tech
Technology
Salary Range: Competitive
Full Text of JOE Listing:

Wealthfront is the largest and fastest growing automated investment service, with nearly $3 billion in client assets under management. Our clients trust us to invest more than $100 million in new assets every month.

As a quantitative researcher in finance, you'll be focusing on financial investments within Wealthfront Research. The primary responsibility of the role is to investigate and develop innovative automated investment strategies to solve clients' various investment problems. You will also work on the algorithmic implementation of the strategies using software in client portfolios, both driven by rigorous research on market data and client data. You will have a diverse focus across finance, including: asset allocation, portfolio construction (taxable and non-taxable), investment vehicle research and evaluation, tax alpha, portfolio optimization, trade execution, behavioral finance, risk modeling, and risk tolerance assessment.

Code and mathematical models are the way we express insights and analysis, thus you need to be comfortable analyzing real-world data and writing a significant amount of R code.

Responsibilities:
Develop portfolio optimization models and investment algorithms
Build reproducible backtests for proposed models / algorithms
Conduct empirical statistical analysis / modeling on relevant data and develop actionable insights
Develop research software for data management, modeling, optimization, backtesting, portfolio analytics to ensure efficient, well-tested, and reproducible research process
Investigate, identify, and acquire internal / external datasets
Closely collaborate with the engineering team to implement proposed strategies / algorithms in our technology system
Collaborate with other teams (product, design, marketing, and compliance) to commercialize new products and ongoing enhancements to existing products

Requirements:
PhD in finance or economics
3-5 year hands-on experience analyzing complex data and building statistical models
Programming competency in R and / or Matlab
Programming competency in SQL preferred
Prior experience or demonstrated interest in finance
Ability to communicate technical content to an audience with varied backgrounds
Ability to collaborate with cross-functional teams
Progress towards CFA is desirable

Application Requirements:
  • External Application Link