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Machine Learning Researcher, Options
EnglandSource: WhatJobs
£70,000–£90,000
At Citadel Securities, we are at a once-in-a-generation opportunity in the financial markets. Machine Learning Researchers on our Options team turn cutting‑edge ideas and petabyte‑scale data into bleeding‑edge models with direct trading impact. Our team of researchers iterate quickly, own decisions end‑to‑end, and operate with substantial autonomy, resources, and scope in a flat, no‑bureaucracy environment.
Location
London
Responsibilities
Own the full research lifecycle, from hypothesis, experiment design, model validation, risk/overfit controls, to deployment
Conduct cutting‑edge research and development in machine learning (e.g. LLMs) at scale with a focus on industry leading techniques and their applications in quantitative finance
Ship models to production that move P&L in options markets—measured by clear, testable outcomes
Prototype → test → iterate fast. The resources and support to take great ideas from concept to trading in a very short space of time
Discover alpha in high‑dimensional data with deep learning, time‑series, and representation learning
Engineer scalable research pipelines from feature generation to distributed training and backtesting
Develop trading intuition to translate insights into executable strategies
Leverage large scale compute and data (petabytes; large budgets) to run ambitious experiments and push the frontier
Skills and Preferred Qualifications
Masters or PhD degree in mathematics, statistics, physics, computer science, or another highly quantitative field
Advanced training and strong research track record in statistics, machine learning, AI, or another highly quantitative field
Deep knowledge of cutting edge large scale models and their training and design
Training techniques (pre‑training, fine‑tuning, RL, RLHF), and optimization methods
A results‑oriented track record of having taken ML ideas from theory to measurable impact
Strong math fundamentals (linear algebra, probability, optimization) and mastery of regression/ML for large scale data
Fluency in Python (NumPy, PyTorch) and the ability to write clean, modular, performant code for large‑scale experiments
Hands‑on with modern machine learning (sequence models/transformers, representation learning, regularization, cross‑validation, causal/robust inference) applied in practice
Bias to action & problem‑solving demonstrated ability and comfort around owning decisions, iterating quickly, and simplifying complex problems to impactful solutions
Curiosity about markets and enthusiasm to learn microstructure, options dynamics, and volatility regimes on the job
Citadel Securities is the next‑generation capital markets firm and a leading global market maker. We provide institutional and retail investors with the liquidity they need to trade a broad array of equity and fixed income products in any market condition. The brightest minds in finance, science and technology use powerful, advanced analytics to solve the market’s most critical challenges, turning big ideas into real‑world outcomes.
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