Quantitative Researcher, SPX & VIX Options Trading

MA CAPITAL U.S. LLC; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

MA Capital US LLC seeks a Quantitative Researcher to join our options trading team and develop systematic strategies across SPX, VIX, and related index derivatives. The core infrastructure supports data, models, risk, and execution to identify, validate, and deploy strategies that generate real trading edge and P&L.

You will work closely with traders and engineers in a highly collaborative environment with ownership and autonomy, advancing ideas from hypothesis through production and live

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD in Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science, Physics, Engineering, Financial Engineering, or a related quantitative discipline.
• 3-5 years of quantitative research experience at a proprietary trading firm, hedge fund, market maker, or other quantitative trading firm.
• Direct experience researching SPX and/or VIX options strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience developing systematic strategies that was deployed in production and generated positive live trading P&L.
• Strong understanding of options pricing, implied volatility, volatility surfaces, skew, term structure, Greeks, and hedging.
• Experience with systematic options strategies, relative value, statistical arbitrage, or volatility trading.
• Strong understanding of transaction costs, execution, liquidity, and market microstructure.
• Experience working with large options and futures datasets.
• Ability to take a research idea from hypothesis through backtesting, validation, and production.

Responsibilities

• Research and develop systematic trading strategies across SPX options, VIX options, and related index products
• Develop signals using volatility surfaces, skew, term structure, relative value, cross-market relationships, market microstructure, and other statistical relationships
• Build and improve fair-value, pricing, and predictive models for options and volatility products
• Backtest strategies using realistic assumptions around transaction costs, liquidity, market impact, and execution
• Take research from initial hypothesis through validation, production implementation, and live trading
• Analyze live strategy performance, P&L drivers, drawdowns, and changing market conditions, and refine strategies accordingly
• Work closely with traders and engineers to improve pricing, signals, execution, hedging, and risk management
• Contribute to a repeatable research process for efficiently testing and deploying new strategies

Skills

Quantitative research

Mathematics

Statistics

Financial engineering

Collaboration

Risk management understanding

Education

Bachelor’s/Master’s/PhD in Mathematics/Statistics/CS/Physics/Engineering/Financial Engineering

Job description

MA Capital US LLC seeks a Quantitative Researcher to join our options trading team and develop systematic strategies across SPX, VIX, and related index derivatives. The core infrastructure supports data, models, risk, and execution to identify, validate, and deploy strategies that generate real trading edge and P&L.

You will work closely with traders and engineers in a highly collaborative environment with ownership and autonomy, advancing ideas from hypothesis through production and live