Researcher In Actuarial Science and Retirement Income, Retirement Solutions - Vice President

About this role

BlackRock’s Retirement Solutions is a part of Blackrock’s Multi-Asset Strategies and Solutions (MASS) team which provides investment strategies and solutions that employ sophisticated asset allocation, rigorous risk management, and extensive research to deliver specific outcomes tailored to client needs. We are dedicated to delivering investment performance by building portfolio positions that are deliberate, diversified and appropriately scaled. MASS includes tactical asset allocation, factor-based strategies, income funds, target date and target risk products, and impact investing. Our team of over 500 multi-asset investment professionals manages a range of pooled vehicles, model portfolios, and customized mandates for a diversified client base.  Currently, MASS has a strong presence in San Francisco, New York, Princeton, London and throughout Asia Pacific.

The Retirement Solutions team is currently one of BlackRock's most dynamic businesses and has been named by senior management as one of the main engines for future revenue growth. The group aims to serve as a resource for clients globally, providing deep expertise in retirement plans and solutions, along with an ability to deliver innovative retirement solutions to a broad range of plan structures.

Retirement Solutions team is seeking a Researcher who will contribute to the management and growth of next generation of Retirement Solutions products. The Researcher will focus on the research, development, and delivery of novel lifecycle investment solutions in retirement income by bringing together sound actuarial and investment paradigms, like BlackRock’s LifePath strategies across multiple markets, countries and/or asset classes.

Role:

The position of Retirement Solutions Researcher entails research in the areas of insurance products like Annuities and life contingent payout products, their pricing mechanisms, as well as human capital and investor savings behaviors in order to create optimal lifetime allocation investments. The candidate will be responsible for fund design, competitive positioning, model portfolio building and automated allocation implementation. The duties will also include obtaining and processing public and private data to support models that cover all of these areas, use of proprietary code written in Python--among other languages--to create new analyses for each of these areas, and development of new investment products.

Responsibilities:

• Research existing offerings in the Retirement market.

• Apply academic and industry research to the creation of new products.

• Employ rigorous quantitative methods to optimize design of existing and new products.

• Assist in the creation of supporting material for new and existing products.

• Develop and extend risk models for existing and new products using internal BlackRock platform

• Support externally-facing portfolio allocation tools

Skills:

• 5+ year as an Actuary and/or quantitative finance.

• Strong background in Actuarial Science, economics and statistics

• Understanding of optimization science

• Understanding of finance and portfolio allocation, utility theory, econometrics, stochastic differential equations, data analysis and behavioral finance.

• Ability to program in Python and Matlab

• Unix scripting languages.

Education:

The ideal candidate would have a degree in actuarial science with additional training and certifications from the Society of Actuaries (SOA), and interest in a quantitative field, e.g., math, computer science, or “hard sciences”. Additional specialization in finance either through coursework, a graduate degree (such as an MFE, PhD or equivalent) would be a plus.

For California only the salary range for this position is $147,500 - $209,500. Additionally, employees are eligible for an annual discretionary bonus, and benefits including heath care, leave benefits, and retirement benefits. BlackRock operates a pay-for-performance compensation philosophy and your total compensation may vary based on role, location, and firm, department and individual performance.

Our benefits

To help you stay energized, engaged and inspired, we offer a wide range of benefits including a strong retirement plan, tuition reimbursement, comprehensive healthcare, support for working parents and Flexible Time Off (FTO) so you can relax, recharge and be there for the people you care about.

Our hybrid work model

BlackRock’s hybrid work model is designed to enable a culture of collaboration and apprenticeship that enriches the experience of our employees, while supporting flexibility for all. Employees are currently required to work at least 4 days in the office per week, with the flexibility to work from home 1 day a week. Some business groups may require more time in the office due to their roles and responsibilities. We remain focused on increasing the impactful moments that arise when we work together in person – aligned with our commitment to performance and innovation. As a new joiner, you can count on this hybrid model to accelerate your learning and onboarding experience here at BlackRock.

About BlackRock

At BlackRock, we are all connected by one mission: to help more and more people experience financial well-being.  Our clients, and the people they serve, are saving for retirement, paying for their children’s educations, buying homes and starting businesses. Their investments also help to strengthen the global economy: support businesses small and large; finance infrastructure projects that connect and power cities; and facilitate innovations that drive progress.

This mission would not be possible without our smartest investment – the one we make in our employees. It’s why we’re dedicated to creating an environment where our colleagues feel welcomed, valued and supported with networks, benefits and development opportunities to help them thrive.

For additional information on BlackRock, please visit @blackrock | Twitter: @blackrock | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/blackrock

BlackRock is proud to be an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer.  We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, protected veteran status, and other statuses protected by law.

We recruit, hire, train, promote, pay, and administer all personnel actions without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and medical conditions related to pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding), sex stereotyping (including assumptions about a person’s appearance or behavior, gender roles, gender expression, or gender identity), gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, age, mental or physical disability, ancestry, medical condition, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship status, sexual orientation, genetic information, or any other status protected by applicable law. We interpret these protected statuses broadly to include both the actual status and also any perceptions and assumptions made regarding these statuses.BlackRock will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records in a manner consistent with the requirements of the law, including any applicable fair chance law.