Quantitative Research Co-op

at  OPTrust

Quantitative Research Co-op
Department: Total Portfolio Management - Investment Division
Type: Winter Co-op – January 2025 – April 2025 - (4-month)
Location: Toronto
At OPTrust, paying pensions today, preserving pensions for tomorrow is our mission and business.
When you choose OPTrust, you join a team of smart, talented people who fuel our success and have a passion for pensions. Everyone at OPTrust – from London, Toronto, and Sydney – makes a meaningful impact, our environment is fast paced, but we find time to have fun and give back to the community as well. Our strength resides in our team members with different backgrounds and perspectives creating an inclusive and fulfilling place to work for everyone.

What OPTrust Offers Students

• Unique culture rooted in our core values – collaboration and teamwork, integrity, respect, flexibility, and excellence and continuous improvement – reflected across the team.
• Dedicated business strategy for inclusion, diversity and equity with multiple, meaningful opportunities to participate.
• OPTrust’s flexible, hybrid work model balances the benefits of working from home and in the office.
• A purpose-driven environment, including the opportunity to contribute to OPTrust’s climate change and responsible investing programs.
• Professional development opportunities, social and networking events and learning initiatives including access to LinkedIn Learning and speaker series.
• Ongoing coaching and feedback to help you succeed, learn and much more!

If you strive for excellence and continuous improvement, value a collaborative and flexible team culture, and approach everything with integrity and respect, then we invite you to apply to join our team!
About the Role
This position offers an exceptional opportunity for an individual with a mindset for learning and continuous improvement to make a significant impact within a systematic investment team. As part of the Total Portfolio Management, our team develops and executes quantitative strategies across all asset classes to optimize the Total Portfolio. The successful candidate will employ a wide range of quantitative skills and financial expertise to imagine and build innovative systematic strategies.

What You’ll Do

• Actively contribute to the full research cycle, including idea generation, model development, stakeholder collaboration, and model implementation, with the aim to address the challenges of the Total Portfolio.
• Contribute to the R&D of investment infrastructure in combination with alternative data and advanced analytical techniques, to advance decision-making in areas such as capital allocation, alpha generation, and Total Fund tail risk mitigation.
• Support team in ad-hoc tasks such as data visualization, performance monitoring, and market analysis.

What You Bring

• Senior undergraduate students or master’s students with experience in quantitative finance, computer engineering, or data science.
• Must be enrolled in a registered co-op program to be considered.
• Broad knowledge of various financial instruments and some experience in capital markets or investment management.
• Demonstrated success in delivering practical solutions to solve problems in financial markets or social science fields.
• Proficiency in Python, data structures, and algorithms.
• A team player with effective communication and time management skills.
• Exemplify OPTrust’s values: collaboration and teamwork, integrity, respect, flexibility, excellence, and continuous improvement.

Preferred Technical Qualifications:

• Working towards the completion of CFA, FRM, or CAIA certifications.
• Experience with machine learning techniques and algorithms, such as Deep Learning, Bayesian statistics, Natural Language Processing and Reinforcement Learning.
• Familiarity with data visualization tools such as PowerBI and cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure.

Serving a membership as diverse as ours and investing in a global market means cultivating an environment that embraces inclusion, diversity and equity in everything we do. We know a diversity of backgrounds, cultures and perspectives are critical to creating long-term value. OPTrust is an organization engaged in building on our unique and diverse strengths. If you require an accommodation at any time during the recruitment process, or have preferred pronouns, please send a message to
careers@optrust.com
, or discuss your needs with the Recruitment Consultant during the telephone screen. We will do our best to work with you and provide appropriate accommodation.
We thank all interested applicants, however only those under consideration will be contacted

• Actively contribute to the full research cycle, including idea generation, model development, stakeholder collaboration, and model implementation, with the aim to address the challenges of the Total Portfolio.
• Contribute to the R&D of investment infrastructure in combination with alternative data and advanced analytical techniques, to advance decision-making in areas such as capital allocation, alpha generation, and Total Fund tail risk mitigation.
• Support team in ad-hoc tasks such as data visualization, performance monitoring, and market analysis