Our Culture

• Degree(s):B.S. in Electrical Engineering; M.S. in Mathematical Finance
• Location:New York
• Job title:Analyst - Derivatives, Financial Modeling
• Group:BlackRock Solutions

I am an analyst on the Derivatives team, within the Financial Modeling Group. The team is responsible for delivering timely, relevant and accurate pricing and risk analytics to our clients. These analytics are used to gauge investment risk, and are an integral part of what our clients look at day-to-day in order to make investment decisions.

Using Problem-solving Skills

I have learned a lot of the things that are important on a day-to-day basis directly on the job. However, my education was extremely relevant in that it taught me how to approach large, difficult and sometimes unstructured problems. It is those skills that are applicable over the long term across BlackRock.

Trying Out Different Roles

Many people have had two or three or four careers… all within BlackRock. I think it is critical for people to try out new roles as they progress in their careers -- mobility within BlackRock is very common.

My job always presents me with new challenges, and pushes me to constantly learn something new. I have never felt like something I am working on is “easy” or “trivial.”  Instead, I am pushed to think harder and learn faster.

Young, Dynamic and Growing

I believe that BlackRock is a great place to start one’s career. The company is young, dynamic and constantly growing. More importantly, the people here are great mentors – I learn from the analysts, the managing directors and everyone in between. When I was evaluating job opportunities, I was focused on finding a place where I can learn the most, be surrounded by talented and interesting people and be involved in something relevant and exciting. After doing my summer internship at BlackRock, I knew that I could find those things here.

8:00 a.m. – Get into the office. I usually catch up on the news and markets while I’m making my way to the office.

8:15 a.m. – Catch up. Read and answer any relevant email that may have accumulated overnight. Check my schedule to plan out the day.

8:30 a.m. – Review tests. Look over the tests of our code base that ran overnight to make sure that no unexpected changes were introduced into our models.

9:15 a.m. – Prepare. Get ready for status meeting with my manager. Prepare a list of things I’ve been working on and a list of issues that need to be resolved.

10:00 a.m. – Work on new analytic. Work on enhancing an analytic that needs to go out in the next monthly release.

1:00 p.m. – Discuss upcoming releases. Meet with the Portfolio Analytics Group to discuss upcoming releases of our models.

2:00 p.m. – Work on new pricing model. Work on implementing a new model for pricing a certain type of credit derivative. I need to make sure that the model is integrated into our current code framework; I also need to make sure that the numbers the model produces make sense. I plan to finish most of the coding soon, and work on verifying the results. The model is nowhere near being ready for production, but preliminary testing is crucial for developing confidence in the numbers.

4:00 p.m. – Present an analysis. Present analysis of an interest rate model’s performance to my manager that my coworkers and I have been working on over the past few days.

5:00 p.m. – Troubleshooting. I receive an email from a member of the Portfolio Analytics Group, asking me to look into some results that an external client is getting when running one of our models. One of the numbers that we produce seems too high. After looking into it for a while, I realize that we need to make an adjustment to the number in question only in the case that the client has presented. I discuss the proposed change with my manager – he agrees that the change is needed. The enhancement will go out as part of our next release.

7:00 p.m. – Research. I catch up on some of the research papers I am reading. These papers are a good way to keep up with what other people in the industry are thinking about.

7:30 p.m. – Wrap up and go home.