What are the responsibilities and job description for the Quantitative Portfolio Developer / Portfolio Engineer position at State of Wisconsin Investment Board?
Making a Difference
The State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), founded in 1951, is a premier global investment organization responsible for managing the more than $156 billion of assets of the fully funded Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS), the State Investment Fund and other state funds. Through SWIB’s effective and innovative investment management, WRS remains one of the only fully funded US public pensions. We are the 9th largest public pension fund in the U.S. and the 25th largest public or private pension fund in the world. SWIB is recognized by the investment industry for our teamwork and innovation. SWIB pursues sophisticated global investment strategies across the asset and risk allocation spectrum. Providers across the investment ecosystem seek to partner with SWIB.
Serving more than 691,000 beneficiaries of the WRS, SWIB is a mission-driven organization focused on providing a strong financial future to those who committed their careers to public service. For public employees and the 1,500 Wisconsin employers who contribute on their behalf, we are a trusted partner. Our team innovates continuously to meet the challenges of an evolving investment landscape while growing and protecting the assets of the WRS.
SWIB provides a strong, steady economic pillar for the state of Wisconsin by growing the trust funds under its management, managing risk, and optimizing costs of the long term. We are a mission-driven organization and the participants we serve are our mission. By bringing a disciplined, prudent, and innovative approach to market opportunities, SWIB has been successful in generating required returns and maintaining the trust of the beneficiaries and stakeholders of the funds we oversee.
Home To Top Talent
Our high-performing staff is key to what makes us a premier investment manager. SWIB is committed to investing in talented professionals to implement our robust, sophisticated investment strategies and to keep the organization at the forefront of the investment industry. We encourage innovation and offer professional development opportunities to help staff sharpen and expand their skills. Approximately 61 percent of SWIB’s investment professionals are Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholders.
Job Description
About the Team:
The Asset and Risk Allocation (ARA) division is responsible for “top-of-the-house” investment management functions at SWIB. ARA plays a key role in the design, recommendation and implementation of asset allocation decisions. ARA also recommends and implements the fund’s active risk budget, allocating total active risk to the fund’s various active investment strategies. In addition, ARA manages an Exposure Management program that involves valuation-driven strategies and risk management overlays, covering major asset classes and currencies. The ARA division currently consists of 27 team members, spanning policy portfolio design and rebalancing, research, factor risk premium analysis, Exposure Management, securities financing and cash management, passive beta management and transition management and portfolio support.
Position Overview
The new Portfolio Engineer role in the Asset and Risk Allocation (ARA) division will play a key role building robust infrastructure to support the implementation of scalable and repeatable investment processes and generating the division’s key investment reports. This Portfolio Engineer will be a senior position in ARA with responsibility for automating investment processes, portfolio implementation and research functions. The Portfolio Engineer will also serve as a liaison between ARA and SWIB’s technology teams to identify, structure, and prioritize the division’s technology requirements within SWIB’s broader infrastructure. The selected candidate will have investment-related experience in using quantitative and data-driven processes to support investment decision-making. Strong collaboration and communication skills will be important to work effectively across ARA and SWIB. The position will report directly to the Asset and Risk Allocation CIO.
Essential Activities
The successful candidate will apply their expertise in investments, quantitative methods and technology in the following ways: (1) developing and documenting high-quality production code to support ARA investment processes and report generation, (2) supporting the division’s data management, and (3) serving as ARA’s liaison with SWIB’s technology groups on investment infrastructure.
Division Technology Strategy and Leadership
Pursuant to our Hybrid Remote Work Policy, all staff have the flexibility to work remotely, but are required to have a weekly presence in our offices, the frequency of which is dependent on their distance from office. Staff are not required to reside locally; however, we offer relocation reimbursement to the Dane County area per our policy.
All SWIB employees are subject to SWIB’s Ethics Policy and Personal Trade Approvals Policy. These policies include restrictions on outside business activities and employment and have limits on personal trading. You may request copies of these policies from SWIB’s talent acquisition team and any questions can be answered by SWIB’s compliance team.
The State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), founded in 1951, is a premier global investment organization responsible for managing the more than $156 billion of assets of the fully funded Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS), the State Investment Fund and other state funds. Through SWIB’s effective and innovative investment management, WRS remains one of the only fully funded US public pensions. We are the 9th largest public pension fund in the U.S. and the 25th largest public or private pension fund in the world. SWIB is recognized by the investment industry for our teamwork and innovation. SWIB pursues sophisticated global investment strategies across the asset and risk allocation spectrum. Providers across the investment ecosystem seek to partner with SWIB.
Serving more than 691,000 beneficiaries of the WRS, SWIB is a mission-driven organization focused on providing a strong financial future to those who committed their careers to public service. For public employees and the 1,500 Wisconsin employers who contribute on their behalf, we are a trusted partner. Our team innovates continuously to meet the challenges of an evolving investment landscape while growing and protecting the assets of the WRS.
SWIB provides a strong, steady economic pillar for the state of Wisconsin by growing the trust funds under its management, managing risk, and optimizing costs of the long term. We are a mission-driven organization and the participants we serve are our mission. By bringing a disciplined, prudent, and innovative approach to market opportunities, SWIB has been successful in generating required returns and maintaining the trust of the beneficiaries and stakeholders of the funds we oversee.
Home To Top Talent
Our high-performing staff is key to what makes us a premier investment manager. SWIB is committed to investing in talented professionals to implement our robust, sophisticated investment strategies and to keep the organization at the forefront of the investment industry. We encourage innovation and offer professional development opportunities to help staff sharpen and expand their skills. Approximately 61 percent of SWIB’s investment professionals are Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholders.
Job Description
About the Team:
The Asset and Risk Allocation (ARA) division is responsible for “top-of-the-house” investment management functions at SWIB. ARA plays a key role in the design, recommendation and implementation of asset allocation decisions. ARA also recommends and implements the fund’s active risk budget, allocating total active risk to the fund’s various active investment strategies. In addition, ARA manages an Exposure Management program that involves valuation-driven strategies and risk management overlays, covering major asset classes and currencies. The ARA division currently consists of 27 team members, spanning policy portfolio design and rebalancing, research, factor risk premium analysis, Exposure Management, securities financing and cash management, passive beta management and transition management and portfolio support.
Position Overview
The new Portfolio Engineer role in the Asset and Risk Allocation (ARA) division will play a key role building robust infrastructure to support the implementation of scalable and repeatable investment processes and generating the division’s key investment reports. This Portfolio Engineer will be a senior position in ARA with responsibility for automating investment processes, portfolio implementation and research functions. The Portfolio Engineer will also serve as a liaison between ARA and SWIB’s technology teams to identify, structure, and prioritize the division’s technology requirements within SWIB’s broader infrastructure. The selected candidate will have investment-related experience in using quantitative and data-driven processes to support investment decision-making. Strong collaboration and communication skills will be important to work effectively across ARA and SWIB. The position will report directly to the Asset and Risk Allocation CIO.
Essential Activities
The successful candidate will apply their expertise in investments, quantitative methods and technology in the following ways: (1) developing and documenting high-quality production code to support ARA investment processes and report generation, (2) supporting the division’s data management, and (3) serving as ARA’s liaison with SWIB’s technology groups on investment infrastructure.
Division Technology Strategy and Leadership
- Supporting the implementation and ongoing management of investment strategies in different asset classes by working with the division’s investment teams, CIO and researchers.
- Building new infrastructure by developing robust production code to implement repeatable and well-documented processes for managing portfolios and generating key reports.
- Enhancing investment reporting that articulates performance, exposure and risk metrics.
- Collaborating with investment, risk and operations/technology teams across the agency.
- Providing insight, leadership and implementation of the division’s data management. The Portfolio Engineer will act as the division’s champion of strong data management practices.
- Collaborate with SWIB’s technology, data and operational groups to ensure that the division’s data needs are addressed and ARA’s data strategy is aligned with SWIB’s data architecture.
- Providing support and technology leadership to help shape the division’s business plans. Collaborate with cross-functional leaders to develop and deliver innovative solutions.
- Supporting investment and operations professionals by developing new reports, generating quantitative analysis, managing data, documenting processes, and monitoring processes.
- Understanding of quantitative methods, optimization and financial modeling would be assets.
- Assist in the development of standardized reporting for communicating firmwide.
- Develop division-wide and asset-class investment tagging methodologies to aid in performance attribution and analysis, with an eye to identifying investment risks and opportunities.
- Build tools to support quantitative assessments, including peer group benchmarking, exposure and risk analysis, and attribution analysis.
- Contribute, as needed, to the analysis of the fit between investments and benchmarks.
- Assist division CIO and investment teams in analyzing performance attribution.
- Learn to use existing and new technologies to manage SWIB’s complex data environment.
- Work with responsible parties to implement corrective/preventative actions.
- Across the enterprise data architecture, define and create data monitoring KPIs, metrics, and dashboards/scorecards that can be leveraged for trending, issue identification, and data status transparency. Monitor and analyze KPIs to identify and resolve or oversee others’ work to resolve data issues.
- Ad hoc projects as assigned.
- Advanced degree in quantitative finance, computer science or another related quantitative field.
- CFA or other related professional investment designation or demonstrated progress towards an appropriate designation.
- Overall post-degree work experience of approximately 10 years.
- Proficiency in programming languages and related finance libraries, with proficiency in Python/Pandas and Matlab mandatory skills and R, SQL, VBA and C beneficial but not highest priority.
- Understanding of portfolio construction techniques, performance attribution, and risk measurement.
- Familiarity with reporting tools like Snowflake and/or PowerBI, would be an asset.
- Experience working with portfolio management systems, such as Bloomberg PORT, Aladdin or proprietary tools.
- Familiarity with risk systems would be an asset, such as FactSet, Barra and Axioma.
- Familiarity working with Simcorp would be an advantage.
- Understanding of practical mathematical and quantitative techniques.
- Ability to work with and organize large data sets for statistical analysis including familiarity with database management.
- Strong collaboration and influence skills.
- Ability to communicate effectively and explain complex data to various audiences.
- Creativity and a willingness to seek and present new ideas.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- An ability to be adaptive and thrive in a fast-paced, changing environment.
- Strong work ethic, attention to detail, team orientation, and commitment to excellence.
- Competitive total cash compensation, based on AON (formerly McLagan) industry benchmarks
- Comprehensive benefits package
- Educational and training opportunities
- Tuition reimbursement
- Challenging work in a professional environment
- Hybrid work environment
Pursuant to our Hybrid Remote Work Policy, all staff have the flexibility to work remotely, but are required to have a weekly presence in our offices, the frequency of which is dependent on their distance from office. Staff are not required to reside locally; however, we offer relocation reimbursement to the Dane County area per our policy.
All SWIB employees are subject to SWIB’s Ethics Policy and Personal Trade Approvals Policy. These policies include restrictions on outside business activities and employment and have limits on personal trading. You may request copies of these policies from SWIB’s talent acquisition team and any questions can be answered by SWIB’s compliance team.
