Palisades Group (or the “Company”), an Austin-based investment firm, is looking for a Senior Data Scientist to join its growing and dynamic team in the Evanston/Chicago office. As part of the Data & Analytics team, your responsibilities will include building data-backed financial models, creating concise and trustworthy financial products by using complex statistical calculations to inform models, and designing effective trading or pricing models using newly-acquired market data. This is a small team and any candidate must be a team-player, able and willing to work on cross-over projects, able to pick up complex concepts and communicate effectively to both internal and external constituents.


The position will allow the candidate to collaboratively work across the Company’s cross-functional teams (Data Research & Reporting, Trading & Analytics, Asset Management, Capital Markets, Transaction Management, and Collateral Management) and to learn from the firm’s industry leading professionals. The ideal candidate will be intellectually curious, a self-starter, have a strong attention to detail, and be able to work under time sensitive deadlines.


As of October 30, 2022, Palisades manages mortgage, real estate and fixed income assets that amount to over $8.3 billion in notional balance through a combination of discretionary funds and separate accounts for globally recognized asset managers, private equity firms, family offices, banks, foundations, endowments, broker dealers, and insurance companies.


ESSENTIAL DUTIES:


  • Create financial models to help evaluate portfolio assets, macro forecasts, or potential new investment strategies.

  • Research new financial products and develop new models to enhance portfolio.
  • Develop models to assess risk and generate reports that contain recommendations for improving portfolio performance.
  • Produce and deliver asset and macro level forecasts for portfolio management purposes.
  • Enhance firms existing proprietary modeling software “Plateau” a framework for creating, managing, and streamlining analytical efforts.
  • Develop analytical tools to address issues such as portfolio construction or optimization, performance measurement, attribution, profit and loss measurement, or pricing models.
  • Utilize firm’s enterprise data warehouse to manipulate and analyze large datasets. Participate in the data management process (data pipeline setup and management).
  • Comprehensive understanding of the model development lifecycle including data collection/wrangling, exploratory analysis and research, model design and deployment, and model operation.
  • Translate those models into comprehensive and understandable reports that allow for better management of the portfolio and provide insights that lead to more profitable trading.
  • Clearly documenting and effectively communicating quantitative methods and policies/procedures as part of ongoing engagement with key stakeholders.


MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:


    • Education: Bachelor's degree or higher in a quantitative subject area (e.g., mathematics, computer science, physics, finance). Masters degree or higher in a quantitative field and other finance related accreditations (CFA, FRM, etc.) are considered a plus but not mandatory.
    • Experience: 3 to 6+ years of experience in the industries of banking, trading, insurance, or financial markets.
    • Strong knowledge of Excel/VBA; and proven track record of learning new programming techniques to analyze and manage data.
    • Strong working knowledge of Python and SQL.
    • Experience using BI tools and building dynamic reporting dashboards (Tableau, superset, etc.)
    • Strong statistical understanding and proven ability to execute and optimize a variety of algorithmic methodologies.
    • Exceptional verbal, written and interpersonal communication skills with the ability to apply common sense to carry out instructions and instruct others, train personnel, write reports, correspondence with clients and employees.
    • Ability to deal with advanced problems involving multiple variables within large structured or unstructured datasets.


BENEFITS:

    • Medical, dental and vision insurance
    • 401(k) retirement plan matching
    • Charitable giving employee matching program
    • Continuing education and professional certification expense reimbursement
    • Wellness stipend (monthly)
    • 13 paid holidays
    • Remote work option (Fridays)
    • Summer hours on Friday
    • Friday team lunches


Palisades is committed to maintaining a positive and collaborative work environment that is safe and respectful of others; our shared success depends on it.  Accordingly, we do not tolerate workplace discrimination, violence or harassment.

We are proud to create a diverse environment and are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

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