Quantitative Developer Analyst Python C++

Legal & General (L&G) is a leading UK financial services group and major global investor.

We’ve been safeguarding people’s financial futures since 1836, and strive to build a better society, while improving the lives of our customers and creating value for shareholders.

We are one of the world’s largest asset managers and provide powerful asset origination capabilities. Together, these underpin our retirement and protection solutions: we are an international player in pension risk transfer, in UK and US life insurance, and in UK workplace pensions and retirement income.

L&G Institutional Retirement looks after around 700,000 institutional customers who have their retirement benefits secured with us. Operating continuously in the UK market from our entrance in 1987, we are the UK’s longest-running insurer.

Our Institutional Retirement division provides pension risk transfer (PRT) solutions for UK and US defined benefit (DB) schemes, and reinsurance solutions from our global hub in Bermuda. We work with companies, DB pension schemes and their advisors to help them secure and protect scheme members’ retirement benefits.

Joining us means you’ll support customers’ financial security in retirement; help companies to settle their pension liabilities and focus on growing their businesses; and enable investment for the long term to back our pension promises.

We’re currently looking to hire a Quantitative Analyst/Developer to join Legal and General Retirement's  Investments Quantitative team

The Investments Quantitative team support the different areas of the wider Investments team (e.g. New Business, ALM, Structuring) with both long-term projects and ad-hoc requests, through quantitative model/tool development and improvement, primarily using Python

The team is small and the type of work we get involved with means there is a lot of opportunity for greenfield development, creativity, and prototyping. Working closely with the New Business team in particular means that we are often involved from initial discussions of new tools and approaches, all the way through to their use in production and beyond, supporting them in BAU and thereby being afforded the opportunity to revisit, refactor and improve our code

We are looking for someone with a real passion for programming, problem-solving, along with strong mathematical ability; it’s less about any formal qualifications and more about the motivation and maturity of thought to assume responsibility quickly

What you'll be doing:

• Working with other members of the Investments Quantitative team to develop and enhance a range of tools, understanding the end-to-end processes fully, with the aim of becoming the primary developer for one or more of these tools
• Supporting the relevant Investments teams in their day-to-day use of the tools, troubleshooting issues, advising on methodology and investigating and implementing suggested improvements/enhancements
• Supporting processes to take new models/methodologies through governance, and satisfy various internal requirements around model ownership & risk
• Improving existing tools and processes, be this in terms of calculation efficiency, use of new libraries/techniques, general code quality, improved testing etc.
• Spotting opportunities to help/advise others on technical/technological issues, being approachable and flexible, maintaining and improving our relationships with other teams
• Taking ownership of platform issues that affect the use of the tools, escalating with relevant in-house and vendor teams to achieve resolution

Who we're looking for:

• Degree level or equivalent, in a highly quantitative subject
• Post graduate qualification in mathematical / computational finance or financial engineering useful but not required
• Good level of “basic” mathematics, e.g. calculus, linear algebra, statistics, probability
• Good programming skills and knowledge of computer science fundamentals, e.g. data structures, algorithms, complexity
• Understanding of various concepts in financial engineering e.g. stochastic calculus, risk neutral/martingale methods, interest rate modelling, derivative pricing, financial statistics / time-series modelling, VaR, Monte Carlo simulation, numerical integration, minimisation, solvers
• Experience of developing modules in Python, including experience interfacing with routines written in C++ (e.g. using pybind11)
• Experience of interfacing Excel with both C++ and Python (e.g. COM and xlwings)
• Sound documentation and communication skills in a client / customer facing environment

Whatever your role, we reward performance and behaviour with a package that looks after all the things that are important to you. Here are some of the benefits we offer:

• The opportunity to participate in our annual, performance -related bonus plan and valuable share schemes
• Generous pension contribution
• Life assurance
• Healthcare Plan (permanent employees only)
• At least 25 days holiday, plus public holidays, 26 days after 2 years’ service. There’s also the option to buy and sell holiday
• Competitive family leave
• Participate in our electric car scheme, which offers employees the option to hire a brand-new electric car through tax efficient salary sacrifice (permanent employees only)
• There are the many discounts we offer – both for our own products and at a range of high street stores and online
• In 2023, some of our workspaces were redesigned. Our offices are great spaces to connect and collaborate and have your wellbeing at the heart

At L&G, we believe it's possible to generate positive returns today while helping to build a better future for all. 

If you join us, you’ll be part of a welcoming, inclusive culture, with opportunities to collaborate with people of diverse backgrounds, views, and experiences. Guided by leaders with integrity who care about your future and wellbeing. Empowered through initiatives which support people to develop their careers and excel.

We care passionately about outcomes rather than attendance and are therefore open to discussing all kinds of flexible working options including part-time, term-time and job shares. Although some roles have limited flexibility due to customer demand, we accommodate requests when we can. 

It doesn’t matter if you don’t meet every single criterion in this advert. Instead, think about what you excel at and what else you can bring in terms of strengths, potential and connection to our purpose.