Senior Member of Research Staff, Voleon Securities

Voleon Securities, a new business within the Voleon Group, provides liquidity in securities markets. We apply state-of-the-art AI/ML techniques to construct our liquidity-provision strategies. For nearly two decades, our affiliate Voleon Capital Management has led the hedge fund industry and worked at the frontier of applying AI/ML to investment management, becoming a multibillion-dollar asset manager. Voleon Securities builds on Voleon’s deep real-world experience applying ML to financial markets.

Voleon Securities is looking for creative, entrepreneurial researchers who enjoy grappling with very difficult problems. This is a chance to join the initial buildout of a fully modern securities business rooted in the frontier of AI/ML and statistics. We particularly welcome researchers with practical experience in optimal stochastic control, deep RL, deep learning, and causal inference. Your colleagues will include internationally recognized experts in artificial intelligence and machine learning research as well as highly experienced finance and technology professionals.

As a Senior Member of Research Staff, you will work at the forefront of modern statistical machine learning. Your research colleagues across Voleon have collectively published hundreds of academic articles in top-tier venues on machine learning, systems, and theory, and we meet regularly to stay current on the latest academic research and share ideas. Founded in 2007 by two leading scientists, Voleon supports a culture of curiosity, collegiality, and creativity.

Your work will focus on financial market prediction and portfolio optimization. The behavior of financial markets is noisy and violates a number of classical statistical assumptions, and we’ve spent over a decade pioneering scientific advances in the application of machine learning techniques to this domain. You will work with a complex and diverse array of datasets to implement and iterate on predictive models. Predicting financial markets is an enduringly hard problem, but results are immediate and unambiguous.

Years of academic training has prepared you for this moment. You won’t just conduct research, you’ll apply it on a daily basis, working with a team across the entire life cycle of applied research problems. Your work will span from basic research to productizing solutions and validating their efficacy in live trading.

Responsibilities

• Develop a rich understanding of Voleon Securities' challenges and methodologies and propose research innovations and experiments to build, maintain, and optimize the models that govern our trading strategy

• Prepare and analyze new datasets to assess their predictive efficacy

• Develop, validate, and implement new models into production

• Design and conduct experiments to improve simulations and evaluate the success of new models in a live trading environment

• Build collaborative relationships cross-functionally and with key contacts outside your own area of expertise, with the potential to serve as an external spokesperson for Voleon Securities

• Communicate and collaborate effectively with key stakeholders at each stage, facilitating meaningful discussions around complex issues and driving progress towards tangible outcomes

• Mentor other researchers and provide technical guidance, coaching, and feedback

• Keep up to date on the latest academic research to identify novel approaches to explore for application to trading and market prediction

• Contribute to Voleon's efforts to recruit exceptional talent

Requirements

• 5-10+ years of related experience directing key research projects and mentoring colleagues

• Capability to run multiple projects simultaneously, exercising judgment in the methods, techniques, and evaluation criteria for determining results

• Ability to make well-reasoned design decisions, identifying and proactively potential issues, tradeoffs, risks, and the appropriate level of abstraction

• Proven success solving large-scale computing problems

• Expertise modern statistical methods and machine learning with a track record as an applied researcher, preferably with experience in at least one of the following: optimal control, deep RL, deep learning, and causal inference

• Evidence of strong mathematical abilities (e.g., publication record, graduate coursework, or competition placement)

• Strong skills in software development techniques and production level coding (Python and/or R preferred)

• Effective at communicating complex technical issues simply and transparently, including writing insightful documentation

• Ability to influence without requiring formal authority, with a proven track record of influence beyond your team

• Interest in financial applications is essential, but prior finance industry experience is not a prerequisite

• Ph.D. level coursework is required, and a Ph.D. degree in a relevant field is preferred

“Friends of Voleon” Candidate Referral Program

If you have a great candidate in mind for this role and would like to have the potential to earn $15,000 if your referred candidate is successfully hired and employed by The Voleon Group, please use this form to submit your referral. For more details regarding eligibility, terms and conditions please make sure to review the Voleon Referral Bonus Program.

Equal Opportunity Employer

The Voleon Group is an Equal Opportunity employer. Applicants are considered without regard to race, color, religion, creed, national origin, age, sex, gender, marital status, sexual orientation and identity, genetic information, veteran status, citizenship, or any other factors prohibited by local, state, or federal law.