Associate, Index Fixed Income - PM Architecture Platform Engineer

AssociateIndex Fixed Income PM Architecture - Platform Engineer  

Job Purpose/Background: 

The Index Fixed Income (IFI) team has responsibility for managing Blackrock’s Index Fixed Income portfolios, including Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), mutual funds, & segregated mandates. The IFI team liaises closely with many areas of Fixed Income and is responsible for ensuring that Fixed Income portfolios are managed efficiently and in a consistent and risk-controlled manner. 

BlackRock’s IFI business is the leading index investment group in the world. We help investors build better portfolios with the industry’s leading suite of index investment tools. We manage over $1.5 trillion in global index fixed income assets across Developed and Emerging Markets. Our clients include corporate and public pension plans, central banks, sovereign wealth funds and retail investors. 

The PM Architecture team develops portfolio construction algorithms to improve investment performance and increase automation across IFI globally. Algorithms, such as rebalancing funds to target and facilitating client flows, are essential to the performance and growth of our ETF & non-ETF Fixed Income index funds. Platform Engineers are responsible for algo environments, which facilitate rapid research, development and deployment. They are experts in building robust infrastructure and are key partners with Aladdin to ensure resiliency in production. 

A successful candidate will have strong technical expertise in building and maintaining rapidly evolving software environments, especially within financial markets and across various operating systems. They should possess strong programming skills, particularly in Python, and be proficient in cloud technology. Effective communication and collaboration skills are essential, as the role involves working closely with investors and engineers. 

Key Responsibilities: 

• Developing and maintaining the testing and production environments to support a rapidly growing business and the accelerated life cycle of portfolio construction algorithms. 

• Collaborating closely within the PM Architecture team to design and implement robust infrastructure solutions and common algo components that enhance the impact and efficiency of IFI algorithms. 

• Ensuring the resiliency and reliability of Algo Platform, which supports over 2 million IFI algo runs annually, in partnership with Aladdin, BlackRock's risk management and investment platform. 

• Maintaining telemetry systems to monitor the performance and health of development environments and algorithms, ensuring timely detection and resolution of issues.  

• Managing a comprehensive testing framework to validate the accuracy and reliability of algorithms and infrastructure components. 

• Driving innovation by leveraging cutting-edge technologies and best practices to continuously improve the performance and scalability of the platform. 

• Providing technical leadership and mentorship, fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous learning within the team. 

Skills/Qualifications: 

• Strong quantitative background (at least BA/BS in Maths/Science/Engineering/related discipline) 

• 4- 6 years of experience in similar industry

• Extensive experience with Python in production environments 

• Practical knowledge of cloud technologies e.g. Docker, CI/CD pipelines 

• Working knowledge of Fixed Income markets 

• Excellent problem-solving skills and process-oriented approach 

• Excellent teamwork and communication skills 

• Knowledge of BlackRock Aladdin tools beneficial