Portfolio Manager – Macro NLP Event Trading Specialist
Location: London / Asia
The Mandate
We are partnering with a leading global investment and trading organization to place a Portfolio Manager to found and scale an NLP-driven macro event trading business.
This is a build seat, not an inherited book. You will design and deploy systematic strategies that use NLP and machine learning to extract predictive signal from unstructured event data — news, transcripts, social media, macro releases — and turn it into positioning across global FX, rates, commodities, and equity indices around policy announcements and sentiment-driven dislocations. You'll manage capital within defined volatility, drawdown, and liquidity parameters, and you'll define the strategic direction and mentor research talent as the business grows under you.
This isn't a seat for a discretionary macro trader who wants to bolt a sentiment dashboard onto an existing process. The NLP and ML work is the core of the edge, not a supporting narrative. You need to be genuinely capable of owning model architecture and data pipeline decisions alongside the trading itself.
The Hard Questions (What You Will Solve)
- Signal Extraction From Unstructured Event Data: across news, transcripts, social media, and macro releases, how do you build NLP and ML pipelines that reliably separate genuine predictive signal from noise, across languages and sources, and translate it into a cross-asset positioning framework?
- Execution Timing Around Event Risk: macro events create both the opportunity and the risk — volatility spikes, gaps, and liquidity air-pockets around announcements. How do you optimize entry and exit timing to capture the dislocation without your execution getting run over by the event itself?
- Building the Business While Running the Book: this is a founding mandate — you're building the data pipelines, model architecture, and research team at the same time you're running live risk within defined volatility and drawdown limits. How do you sequence that build without either the infrastructure or the live book suffering for it?
The Structural Edge
- Founding Mandate: genuine ownership of strategic direction for a new NLP-driven macro business, not inheriting someone else's methodology or mandate constraints.
- Data and Compute Infrastructure: institutional-grade data infrastructure, event feeds, NLP compute clusters, and engineering resources to support model development from day one.
- Institutional Capital Backing: significant institutional capital behind the mandate, enabling scale and capacity growth while sustaining a robust Sharpe ratio as the business matures.
Ideal Profile
The Metric
- Experience: minimum 5 years as a Portfolio Manager or Senior Researcher deploying systematic macro or event-driven strategies, with a demonstrated positive PnL track record ($20–30m+) and measurable alpha linked to macro, sentiment, or NLP-based models. Hedge fund, multi-manager, or proprietary trading experience preferred.
- Mindset: a collaborative communicator who thrives at the intersection of macro insight, data science, and execution — genuinely comfortable owning both the research build and the live risk simultaneously.
The Tech
- Languages: deep proficiency in Python (pandas, scikit-learn, PyTorch, or TensorFlow).
- Quant Foundation: strong understanding of NLP pipelines, LLM fine-tuning, sentiment extraction, and alternative data integration.
Compensation & Preferences
- Non-compete: preference for candidates with ≤ 12 months remaining; buyouts considered for exceptional profiles.
- Compensation: Base salary plus performance-linked bonus plus carry in the fund, in line with the platform’s competitive comp structure.
This is not a guarantee of compensation or salary; a final offer amount may vary based on factors including but not limited to experience, domain expertise, and geographic location.
At Onyx Alpha Partners, we are committed to connecting the most sought after talent in the financial world, to opportunities that expand the universe of unconstrained performance within their chosen discipline. If this opportunity aligns with your career aspirations, we encourage you to apply and explore the potential for growth and unparalleled success.
Portfolio Manager – Macro NLP Event Trading Specialist in London employer: Onyx Alpha Partners
Onyx Alpha Partners is an exceptional employer, offering a dynamic work environment where innovation and analytical thinking are at the forefront. Located in the UK, we provide our employees with unparalleled growth opportunities, a collaborative culture, and the chance to shape the future of our rates options desk. Join us to be part of a team that values independence, creativity, and professional development.
