Associate Quantitative Analyst
The Group: The Product Capabilities group is a product development organization that provides software platforms, services, and components fueling Morningstar’s product portfolio across client segments. This diverse set of teams develop software for truly differentiated capabilities, including robo-advice engines, research software, portfolio software, and investment reports. This group is also responsible for Morningstar’s web-based “Cloud” and native-app “Mobile” platforms. Nearly every Morningstar product leverages something from the capability teams, whether as a building block or an entire application. We build software users love, at scale.
The Role: Morningstar’s Advice Engines team helps investors reach their goals by incorporating proprietary research and methodology into sophisticated analytical engines that power internal and external applications. The team is seeking an Associate Quantitative Analyst to work on our Wealth Forecasting Engine (WFE). In this role, you will work alongside research, product management, development, and quality assurance teams to gain in-depth understanding of complex financial planning and investment management methodologies and implementation. You will collaborate with research, development, and QA teams to ensure successful product support, development, and growth. If you are looking to apply your knowledge of financial planning with your analytics skills toward the development of differentiated automated investing solutions, this may be the position for you! This position is based in Chicago.
Responsibilities:
• Integrate proprietary research and financial planning concepts into a global set of advice engines by working closely with Morningstar research, product managers, and developers to bring intellectual property and new methodology to market.
• Develop an in-depth understanding of the WFE methodologies and implementations.
• Lead the execution of product maintenance activities
• Develop the ability to serve as a conduit between product, research, technology, and external clients
• Use data driven decisions to develop and test hypotheses to guide next steps in product development, testing, and client support
• Participate in the development of prototypes that demonstrate proposed and existing functionalities of the engines.Minimum requirements:
• Bachelors degree in information technology, mathematics, engineering, or similar field
• At least two years’ experience modeling, applying, or practicing investment planning and forecasting methodologies (tax modelling, capital markets assumptions, strategic asset allocation, tax-optimized asset location, goal planning, etc.)
• Demonstrated skill in at least one scripting language such as Python, Ruby, R, etc.
• Some knowledge and willingness to learn more advanced models (e.g. optimization, Monte Carlo simulations, etc.)
• Familiarity with Agile development framework and experience working as a member of a scrum team
• Strong attention to detail, excellent verbal, written, and analytical skills
• Knowledge of web technology and XML and proficiency with Microsoft Office
• Ability to multi-task and manage several projects at any given time
• Demonstrated skill in at least one statistical package, fluency with quantitative techniques, and familiarity with SQL, and a demonstrated ability to extract data from any relational database