About this role

The AI Labs

Since our founding 30 years ago, BlackRock has brought together extraordinary minds to drive innovation. From the beginning, we have been demonstrating technology for insight and efficiency to make our business better and to help clients realize the objectives they desire. In 2018 BlackRock accelerated innovation and technology again with additional investment in artificial intelligence and data science and all the potential they represent.

The AI Labs was formed to act as a central hub with a firm-wide remit to seek strategic business challenges for the firm by bringing to bear our expertise in machine learning, artificial intelligence, data science and optimization. Our mission is to combine human and machine intelligence to redefine asset management.

We are a hybrid research and product team and have a responsibility to drive towards commercial impact in the form of alpha generation, operational efficiencies, and cost reduction. Building on the success of detailed investment teams with a history of demonstrating machine learning at BlackRock to build alpha, the goal was to apply these same techniques throughout the business.

Job Description

As a researcher, you will collaborate with a distributed team of outstanding academics, engineers, and investment professionals to develop methodologies for products solving a corporate-wide set of client, investor, and operational problems. Products developed often use multiple subject areas, including statistics, machine learning, and optimization, and combine original methods with pioneering solutions available in industry and academia. You will be responsible for the entire research lifecycle, from initial research and prototyping, to iterating on the system methodology, to detailing the final product and clearing internal review processes.

Responsibilities

• Work with stakeholders to translate business needs into well-scoped technical projects.
• Efficiently work well with large and sophisticated datasets to evaluate technical methodologies.
• Rapidly prototype technical solutions implementing groundbreaking tools from optimization and machine learning.
• Produce technical whitepapers and make clear technical presentations to senior management.
• Work with engineers and stakeholders to build productionalized solutions that are reliable, scalable, and operate in compliance with firm-wide processes.

Qualifications

• Either a PhD in a quantitative subject area (computer science, mathematics, statistics, economics, physics, engineering, or related field), or
• An MS degree in a quantitative field plus 3+ years of professional experience in optimization, machine learning, statistics, exploratory data analysis, and other aspects of the data science process
• Strong theoretical background in and practical experience using optimization, statistical techniques, and machine learning, preferably shown through academic publications or open-source codebases.
• Strong familiarity with programming languages such as Python, Julia, or R.
• Experience with the analysis or application of data in finance, economics, sociology, or related fields is a plus.

 

For California and New York City only the salary range for this position is $157,500 - $214,500. Additionally, employees are eligible for an annual discretionary bonus, and benefits including heath care, leave benefits, and retirement benefits. BlackRock operates a pay-for-performance compensation philosophy and your total compensation may vary based on role, location, and firm, department and individual performance.

Our benefits

To help you stay energized, engaged and inspired, we offer a wide range of benefits including a strong retirement plan, tuition reimbursement, comprehensive healthcare, support for working parents and Flexible Time Off (FTO) so you can relax, recharge and be there for the people you care about.

Our hybrid work model

BlackRock’s hybrid work model is designed to enable a culture of collaboration and apprenticeship that enriches the experience of our employees, while supporting flexibility for all. Employees are currently required to work at least 4 days in the office per week, with the flexibility to work from home 1 day a week. Some business groups may require more time in the office due to their roles and responsibilities. We remain focused on increasing the impactful moments that arise when we work together in person – aligned with our commitment to performance and innovation. As a new joiner, you can count on this hybrid model to accelerate your learning and onboarding experience here at BlackRock.

About BlackRock

At BlackRock, we are all connected by one mission: to help more and more peo