Market Data Specialist

About Bridgewater

Bridgewater Associates is a premier asset management firm, focused on delivering unique insight and partnership for the most sophisticated global institutional investors.

Our investment process is driven by a tireless pursuit to understand how the world’s markets and economies work — using cutting edge technology to validate and execute on timeless and universal investment principles.

Founded in 1975, we are a community of independent thinkers who share a commitment for excellence. By fostering a culture of openness, transparency, and inclusion, we strive to unlock the most complex questions in investment strategy, management, and corporate culture.

Our Culture

Bridgewater’s unique success is the direct result of our unique way of being. We want an idea meritocracy in which meaningful work and meaningful relationships are pursued through radical truth and radical transparency. We require people to be extremely open, air disagreements, test each other’s logic, and view discovering mistakes and weaknesses as a good thing that leads to improvement and innovation. It is by continually striving together for the highest levels of truth and excellence that we create meaningful work and meaningful relationships. Within this culture, Diversity and Inclusion is a top priority because it is essential to finding the best talent in the world, enabling our idea meritocracy, and creating an environment where all types of people can thrive. We have a full-time team as well as affinity networks that work on these issues - If you would like to learn more, please let your Bridgewater recruiter know.

About the Research Department

Our mission is to understand how the world works — building and compounding our understanding of the timeless cause-and-effect relationships that move global economies and markets. With curiosity, cutting-edge technology, and deep sets of data, we build frameworks and analytical models that explain everything from long-term debt cycles to currency devaluations; and we use that compounded understanding to create the investment strategies that drive Bridgewater.

About the Team 

As a Data Specialist within the Investment Engineering group, your mission is to understand how the world’s markets and economies work and deeply understand the data that flows from the outside world into Bridgewater’s research process and trading systems to ensure we generate the right insights and the right trades. 

About Your Role

As a Data Specialist, your job is to ensure Bridgewater uses the best data possible for our investment goals and our researchers, engineers, and operators deeply understand the data under your purview. This requires, within your area of expertise, a thorough understanding of the investment concepts and their real-world measurements as well as being the person responsible for data availability in the outside world. You will spend your time developing a point-of-view on the external world’s data landscape and showing researchers how new content could fit into Bridgewater’s understanding of the world. You will work with our investment engineers, who are tasked with turning the outside world of data into datasets usable by the algorithms used to generate Bridgewater's views on markets, to ensure the data is well represented in our investment process. You will work with our investment operations team, which is responsible for the daily validation of our investment models, to answer questions related to the models where you are the expert, including how to validate such data.

You will drive the following responsibilities:

• Be the expert for data in your area (e.g. various equity sectors; LATAM macroeconomic data; derivatives; etc.), including both mechanics (i.e. how to price options) as well as color (i.e. best data providers; up-to-date on market action; in the flow of what is happening in the sector, etc.), and cost
• Comfortable synthesizing the impact of various data provider options for use in our investment processes and research
• Working closely with our data procurement team to bring on the best data available for our internal investment needs
• Answer questions from investors about data quality, provenance, release timing, methodology, etc.
• Partnering with our technology teams to ensure the best possible data is delivered excellently for internal consumption to meet our investment needs
• Note: While the core function of this job does not require building data pipelines you may, from time to time, need to build some for exploratory needs

You will be a click for the role if you:

• Love data and want to understand what is behind the numbers
• Are already or have a strong desire to become an expert in an area of the market
• Are analytical, highly logical, and structured in your thinking
• Can perceive problems and resolve them by identifying and weighting tradeoffs
• Hold a high degree of personal responsibility and ownership
• Have an interest in learning about financial markets data
• Enjoy learning about new data tools and programming languages

Minimum Qualifications

• 4-year degree from an accredited undergraduate institution with a focus on economics, operations research and industrial engineering or computer science
• Direct experience and demonstrated expertise within a major asset class and with the relevant data providers / data sets (i.e. Bloomberg, Refinitiv, ESG, etc.)
• For common data providers (Bloomberg, Refinitiv, etc.) very familiar with data models, cost models, and access methods (i.e. APIs)
• Experience with a broad range of data schemas (e.g., ontologies, taxonomies, etc.)
• Proficiency in data modeling for relational and dimensional data platforms
• Strong SQL skills
• 2-3 Years at investment management firm or data provider

Physical Requirements

This role requires individuals to work at our offices in Westport, CT at a minimum of two days (and some cases three) per week with the option to work offsite on other days.

Why Choose Bridgewater?

It takes all types to make Bridgewater great. We seek a diverse group of innovative thinkers and push them to engage in rigorous and thoughtful inquiry. We develop people through an honest examination of their abilities and performance, enabling personal growth and professional development. We strive to provide you opportunities that will challenge you and unlock your potential.

In this role, you will grow with us by:

• Undergoing a training program of structured classes and on-the-job apprenticeship.
• Taking ownership of increasingly complex systems and processes.
• Taking on oversight and mentorship responsibilities to grow talent as you gain experience.
• Opportunities to grow your career across Bridgewater depending on your strengths, weaknesses, and experience.

One of our core priorities at Bridgewater is to enable our employees to build a great life and career, and we believe our benefits are an important extension of that philosophy. As such, currently Bridgewater offers a competitive suite of benefits including:

• Health insurance with 100% premium covered and access to additional concierge medical services
• 401(k) plan with generous employer match
• Paid time off, including fully paid parental leave and a competitive PTO package
• Workplace flexibility and access to back up childcare
• Financial assistance for family building support, including adoption and egg freezing
• Workplace wellness, including on-site gyms, free meals and healthy snacks , and meditation rooms
• An engaged and active community that includes many company events, affinity networks, and extracurricular interest groups
• For a full list of Bridgewater benefits, click here.

Bridgewater reserves the right to change its current benefits program at any time, in a manner that is consistent with applicable federal and state regulations

This job description is not a contract and confers no contractual rights, privileges, or benefits on any applicant or potential applicant. Bridgewater has the right to change any and all terms of this job description, including, but not limited to, job responsibilities, qualifications and benefits. Nothing in this job description constitutes an offer or guarantee of employment. Please note that we do not provide immigration sponsorship for this position.

Bridgewater Associates, LP is an Equal Opportunity Employer