Quantitative Researcher - Prediction Markets

Akuna Capital•Chicago, IL

11h

About The Position

Akuna Capital is an innovative trading firm with a strong focus on collaboration, cutting-edge technology, data driven solutions, and automation. We specialize in providing liquidity as an options market-maker – meaning we are committed to providing competitive quotes that we are willing to both buy and sell. To do this successfully, we design and implement our own low latency technologies, trading strategies, and mathematical models. Our Founding Partners first conceptualized Akuna in their hometown of Sydney. They opened the firm’s first office in 2011 in the heart of the derivatives industry and the options capital of the world – Chicago. Today, Akuna is proud to operate from additional offices in Sydney, Shanghai, London, and Singapore. Akuna's Prediction Markets team is looking to add a Quantitative Researcher focused on sports related contracts. The successful candidate will play a crucial role in developing Akuna’s sports pricing capabilities, working closely with development and trading teams to refine and deploy these models alongside our strategies. This position offers the opportunity to make a direct impact on an exciting new desk at Akuna. The ideal candidate will possess strong programming and analytical skills, a creative mindset, and a passion for sports. In this role you will: Design and develop data capture pipelines to enable the pricing of a variety of sports contracts (match outcomes, player props, in-game events) Develop and calibrate pricing models using historical data in service of in-play quoting of sports contracts. Build and maintain internal tooling to facilitate all aspects of the research pipeline Work closely with trading and development to deploy models into production trading strategies, bridging the gap from research to production with an ownership mentality

Requirements

Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD degree in a technical field, such as Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, or Physics (or a related subject)
Proficient programming skills in Python (C++ is a plus)
2+ years of experience in a quantitative or programming role, preferably within the trading sector.
Deep understanding of fields such as Linear Algebra, Numerical Methods, Statistics, Optimization, and Machine Learning
Strong interest in sports and quantitative modeling.

Nice To Haves

high agency individuals who have practical experience in financial markets and see the recent rise in prediction markets as an opportunity to ply their trade to a new domain they find more dynamic and exciting: sports.
working quant and a sports data nerd

Responsibilities

Design and develop data capture pipelines to enable the pricing of a variety of sports contracts (match outcomes, player props, in-game events)
Develop and calibrate pricing models using historical data in service of in-play quoting of sports contracts.
Build and maintain internal tooling to facilitate all aspects of the research pipeline
Work closely with trading and development to deploy models into production trading strategies, bridging the gap from research to production with an ownership mentality