Role Description — Junior Quantitative Analyst, Quantitative Research (Trading)
Purpose of the role
Quantitative Research is the scientific engine of the Trading function. It builds, validates and maintains the models that describe how clients trade, how flow behaves, and where the firm earns or loses money in the pricing and risk process. Its output informs pricing, risk and routing decisions; it does not take those decisions, and independence of analysis is a defining feature of the function.
The Junior Quantitative Analyst supports senior researchers on live research problems, working on production data where results feed real decisions.
Responsibilities
- Analyse trade, quote and client datasets to characterise client behaviour, flow quality and execution outcomes.
- Build and back-test classification and signal models under supervision, including the tests that would falsify them.
- Perform validation and robustness work on existing models: stability over time, sensitivity to assumptions, behaviour under stressed conditions.
- Investigate anomalies and distinguish genuine changes in market or client behaviour from data or code defects.
- Contribute to data-quality standards across sources: completeness, refresh cadence, definitional consistency.
- Document findings clearly for non-quantitative readers, stating explicitly what the analysis does and does not support.
Skills and competencies
- Quantitative degree (mathematics, statistics, physics, computer science, engineering, quantitative finance or similar).
- Python for data analysis; SQL against large tables. Compiled-language exposure desirable.
- Applied statistics: hypothesis testing, regression, time series; judgement about when a result is noise.
- Working interest in market microstructure and broker economics; depth built on the job.
- Intellectual honesty: separates what is certain, inferred and guessed, and says so regardless of audience.
- Clear written communication.
