Quantitative Strategist - VP/Director
About Javelin
Javelin Global Commodities is a leading global commodities marketing, trading, logistics services and investment firm with head offices in London and wider global offices in New York, Singapore, Dubai, Switzerland, Canada, Poland, India and Australia. Javelin was founded in 2015 and operates across more than 20 different commodities including metals, coal, oil, iron ore, gas and power, freight, agriculture and renewables.
We employ over 200 people but maintain a flat corporate structure and small-company agility. We take pride in our values, global reach, meritocratic culture and strong work ethic. Our success over the years has been built on our guiding principles of customer service, creativity, transparency, integrity, and responsibility.
Javelin has a dedicated strategy to support local and meaningful charities through volunteer days, donation matching, a ‘give as you earn’ scheme and other fundraising activities. We are committed to the wellbeing of our colleagues and organise various social evenings, sports clubs and lunchtime activities. Our London office has on-site gym facilities and a golf/sports simulator. Discover more at http://www.javelincommodities.com/.
The Role
The Quantitative Strategies team is an integral part of Javelin’s DNA and acts as the glue between commercial, functional and technical parts of the organisation. We are engaged in all aspects of deal development from conception to execution and we actively advise on risk and management for the firm’s most complex trades. Tactically we are a small team of experts, ensuring the role is varied and exciting.
Our role is similar to Quantitative Research at investment banks and hedge funds, but the opportunity at Javelin is broader in scope and influence. Whilst the team is embedded on the trading floor and has a front office focus, our company performs significant logistical, financing, and operational activities and our group bridges all these areas. As a result, the problems that we solve are varied and challenging and the pace can be fast and pressurised.
Key Responsibilities Include:
- Assist commercial teams with deal structuring and risk management
- New trade booking plan, hedging and reporting of complex physical deals on execution
- Develop pricing models and libraries, capturing specific attributes of our markets and deals
- Evaluate risk and provide analysis of trading positions to facilitate hedging activity
- Build risk reporting frameworks for portfolio sensitivities, VAR, credit, working capital attribution and margin for a range of vanilla and exotic financial instruments
- Understand and quantify funding, accounting, FX/rates and tax implications of positions
- Support operations, logistics and settlements teams, troubleshooting errors and advising on how to reflect new or changing contract terms
- Work closely with developers in the Technology team to enhance infrastructure such as in-house trade management and physical commodity scheduling platforms.
Requirements
Skills and Experience Required:
We are looking for an experienced individual with market specific knowledge of commodities, ambitious to get involved in trading decisions and risk platform design. Our candidate would have strong commodities experience, and/or good familiarity with our system architecture, and be able to apply their existing knowledge to our business from early outset. Candidate should be open to the changing priorities of our business, with a dynamic and pragmatic mindset and ability to apply their skills across multiple commodities and business lines.
We have scope to hire at varying experience levels – what is important is to find a candidate with the right skills and outlook to fit our team and expanding businesses.
- Director: More than 10 years’ experience as a quantitative analyst in the commodities space
- Vice President: More than 6 years’ experience as a quantitative analyst in the commodities space
Requirements:
- Experienced in Python and competent programming pricing models and risk systems
- Commercial acumen and comfortable liaising across teams, particularly sales, trading, finance and accounting
- Excellent communication skills
- Works collaboratively. Open to ideas and suggestions within team, and mentoring more junior colleagues
- Problem solving skills, proactive and inquisitive
- Ability to work in a fast paced and sometimes pressurised environment
- Prior knowledge of Beacon, SecDb, Athena or Quartz would be very helpful, but not essential
Benefits
- Annual discretionary bonus
- 25 days holiday
- Company pension scheme (10% company contribution)
- Private medical scheme with a range of additional wellbeing benefits
- Travel insurance
- Income protection
- Life assurance (5x salary)
- Bike2Work scheme including secure storage and showers
- Season ticket loan
- Onsite gym