About this position
Quantitative Researcher - Chicago/NYC
Company description
- Radix Trading is a proprietary firm focused on quantitative research
- and scientific trading. We’re one of the most active liquidity
- providers on electronic exchanges globally, and have leveraged a
- culture of open, collaborative innovation to scale the reach of our
- ideas and pace of iteration, without having to scale our headcount. We
- operate in Chicago, New York, and Amsterdam.
- In our industry, the vast majority of ideas will fail. So, since
- inception, we’ve focused on continuous enhancement of our automated
- research platform and cutting-edge technology, allowing us to fail
- faster than the day prior, glean insights from each idea, and leverage
- individual contributions to the fullest across our entire
- organization.
We’re led by Ben Blander and Michael Rauchman.
--------------------------
- Ben Blander - former head of Citadel’s high frequency group and a key
- contributor in growing their P&L from $75 million in 2005 to $1.15
- billion in 2008. Previously Ben earned a PhD in Math (Algebraic
- Topology under Peter May) from the University of Chicago.
- Michael Rauchman - formerly GETCO's CTO, head of Americas equities,
- and global head of ForEx. As a hands-on leader, Michael was
- instrumental in the development of many trading strategies as well as
- the underlying architecture and code.
--------------------------
Why trading?
- If you want to get near-immediate feedback on your best ideas, while
- leveraging cutting-edge technology, the trading industry is hard to
- beat. Every day we’re competing with some of the smartest, most driven
- people in the world trying to take our money -- and if we don’t stay
- at the very top of our game in research, technology, and economics,
- they will.
- And while the highly-publicized wave of high-frequency or “flash”
- trading based on sheer speed of execution might have reached its
- limit, we see continued opportunities with our strategy of using
- statistical research to outsmart the competition.
Job description
- As a Quantitative Researcher, your focus is on identifying trading
- opportunities, but you can add even more value with strong
- quantitative skills and some coding proficiency to accelerate the
- innovation process and help others leverage your work.
- As you get going, you’ll gain new knowledge and insight into the
- fundamentals of market dynamics, trading strategies, and our
- proprietary research platform. We’ve stripped away the boundaries of
- what you can access and touch internally, so while you learn the
- intricacies of our industry, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to
- contribute and directly affect our bottom line within your first few
- weeks on the team.
- While interest in trading is key, a background in finance is
- definitely not. Our team is built mostly from academia — professors,
- postdocs, and PhDs — not from other trading firms. We seek mental
- diversity and add a select group of academics each year from a wide
- range of disciplines.
- COMPENSATION – Competitive salary, plus quarterly bonus based on
- individual performance and contribution towards success of others and
- the firm.
Qualifications
- We’re looking for highly analytical people (math, physics, computer
- science, statistics, electrical engineering, etc.) who want to help
- build the research-driven trading firm of the future. To do that,
- you’ll need the following qualities:
- > Persistent Drive to Improve - Do you have an innate desire to rise
- to the next level, even after great accomplishment? Our people have
- been very successful in their academic careers and are joining Radix
- to make even more impact.
- > Creative Problem Solving and Probabilistic Thinking - You must enjoy
- learning and implementing new concepts quickly, combining knowledge
- from different domains to create new ideas, and take a data-driven and
- probabilistic approach to testing and implementing new ideas.
- > Team Mindset - We want people who understand 1+1 > 2 and are as
- committed to making the team better through sharing ideas as they are
- driven to improve their individual performance.
- > Mental Flexibility & Self Awareness - You’ll have to frequently
- adapt based on new data, results, and feedback on your trading ideas
- and your performance.
- > Orientation for Making Money - Although we value academic training,
- our work is not an academic exercise. We take a hacker’s approach to
- testing ideas, dropping projects that consume time without high
- upside, and focusing our next efforts on what will create the most
- value for the firm.
Research / Quant trading strategy skills to have or develop
- > Strong intuition and deep thinking with data sets - Designs new
- alphas, understands complex systems; knows where to start, or ask
- others where to start
> Demonstrates strong “hacking” ability to quickly get into data to
look for empirical relationships and decipher noise or signal
- > Familiarity with classical statistical methods and knows when and
- how to apply them in a rigorous fashion; Easily learns how to apply
- new statistical methods; will seek out and learn new methods to better
- solve problems
> Experience with modern AI techniques and methods or desire to work
on Applied Machine Learning Problems
- > Constantly questions finance/trading data and stays motivated to
- seek answers despite most often proving that there is no correlation
- or signal
> Experience in setup of research framework and execution of projects
> Understanding of financial products, market dynamics, and
microstructure
- > Low-level computer languages like C++ or Python, Java, etc.;
- awareness of strength in particular language and ability to solve more
- complex problems due to understanding nuances of the language
- **We will eventually require 2+ academic recommendation letters, but these are not required to apply upfront. Preference for existing letters, at least 1 being from your advisor --- these should be framed for academic positions, scholarships, research grants etc ---- no need to have your references write something new
How to apply
- Read the full advert on the source site — it carries the authoritative terms.
- Prepare your SOP, CV, transcripts and referees before the deadline.
- Apply through the university's own portal. Never pay a fee to a third party.