Senior Quantitative Researcher, PM Engagement

Balyasny Asset Management L.P. (BAM) is a global institutional investment firm. We strive to deliver consistent, uncorrelated, absolute returns in all market environments by fostering a culture of research, innovation, and collaboration. BAM exists at the intersection of finance and technology, combining the deep industry knowledge of leading portfolio managers and financial analysts with software engineers and quantitative researchers. We leverage the collective expertise of our teams to seek out new investment opportunities, analyze market conditions, minimise risk, and provide superior service to our investment partners. With 2,000+ people in offices around the world, we embrace a culture that welcomes the free flow of ideas, promotes career development, and supports the health and wellbeing of our people through world-class benefits.

ROLE OVERVIEW

PM Engagement coaches equity Portfolio Managers with a specific focus on portfolio construction, provides analytics and insights into their portfolio and process, and helps them grow their business to be successful/profitable at BAM. The team works with teams across fundamental long/short equity, index arbitrage, and merger arbitrage strategies. The team is involved in research on topics including equity portfolio analytics, factor/factor model research, and analysis of best practices in the portfolio construction/investment process.

The Senior Quantitative Researcher, PM Engagement, is responsible for working with equity PMs on their portfolio construction and investment process, helping them understand their risk taking and improve their profitability and scalability. The researcher will be expected to contribute to the development of quantitative models for the analysis of portfolio risk & performance for strategies, including alternative equity strategies. Leveraging excellent communication skills and a deep understanding of how investment processes, portfolio construction, and analytics impact outcomes, the researcher will be responsible for developing models, conducting analysis, and sharing insights on drivers of P&L, best practices, and portfolio construction concepts with portfolio managers and business management.

The successful candidate should be passionate about equity investing with experience in Long/Short or alternative equity strategies, and possess advanced quantitative abilities, strong analytical skills, and be a strong communicator able to explain quantitative concepts and recommendations to other investment professionals. They will demonstrate a strong sense of ownership and an ability to generate and execute creative ideas as the team builds analytics and tools to support and grow the business.

Responsibilities:

• Improving profitability and scalability of the equities business at BAM by working directly with PMs to drive performance and scale; supporting tailored analysis with quantitative research and a deep understanding of the investment process.
• Research: Develop models for analysis of investment process, portfolio construction, risk and return attribution for strategies. Understand team investment processes and how to capture and analyse relevant data. Develop analysis supported by data for individual teams and/or using data across the business to provide analysis on best practices, insights, and areas to improve risk-adjusted returns. Propose and substantiate new research ideas that can be delivered to Portfolio Managers/Business. Respond to analytical questions from portfolio managers and senior management related to risk, portfolio construction, investment process.
• Relationships and Advising: Managing relationships with Portfolio Managers and work with them to grow and improve profitability of their business. Functioning as a representative of equity risk, interface with PMs. Ensure that views/themes are accurately represented within portfolios. Encourage dialogue/communication around analytics and offensive risk taking as well as risk guidelines. Communicate analysis and recommendations clearly through face-to-face meetings, presentations, and written documentation with global PM teams focused on equity strategies, as well as business management. Guide PMs on use of tools, concepts, and leveraging resources/analytics and insights to improve their process, portfolio construction/hedging.
• Project Ownership: Collaborate with other Quantitative Researchers across Risk & Development, Data, Product, and Engineering teams on accessing data sets and developing tools that improve Portfolio Managers or Business efficiency, profitability, and understanding of portfolio/risks. Deliver complex projects with multiple stakeholders. Provide feedback on tools and help provide specifications for new tools.

Qualifications:

• The candidate must be able to demonstrate expertise in quantitative analysis techniques including statistical analysis, experience working with market data and large data sets programmatically, and strong analytical skills.
• Additionally, the candidate should have experience with financial data and equity investment strategies including risk, performance attribution, and investment process.
• 5+ years of experience working on a team with experience understanding risk/portfolio construction and analytics related to equity Long/Short or other alternative equity strategies, including at least 2 years of direct interaction with risk takers or in a risk-taking role.
• Strong programming skills for quantitative analysis.
• Strong Python skills – including prior experience with time series analysis, managing data, and contributing to internal analysis libraries in Python.
• Experience with SQL for managing and accessing data.
• Proficiency with software development process and tools such as GitHub.
• Excellent communication/presentation skills, confidence, and ability to influence, coach, educate fundamental PMs.
• Outstanding written and oral communication skills.
• Interest in learning from other investment experts, using feedback to improve analysis and understanding of strategies.
• Understanding of quantitative research & investing.
• Superior quantitative skills demonstrated through an advanced degree (PhD or Masters) in sciences/math/quantitative discipline and/or practical experience applying quantitative finance theory.
• Experience implementing statistical models.
• Understanding of factor models and their applications.
• Attention to detail and passion/grit for getting things done, digging into problems, and helping develop solutions.
• Sense of ownership and entrepreneurialism to grow the business.
• Passion for investing/economics/stock market = Desire to work with portfolio teams focused on equity strategies.