Associate

About the Role

Morgan Stanley Investment Management is seeking an Associate to join the Central Trading & Risk Management team of a multi-manager, market neutral equity hedge fund. The team partners directly with portfolio managers to optimize portfolio construction, manage risk, develop quantitative investment tools, and improve investment performance. This is a highly analytical role with broad exposure to the investment process, combining risk management, quantitative research, portfolio construction, and data analysis. This role provides a unique opportunity to influence investment decisions across multiple portfolio managers and strategies while helping shape the quantitative infrastructure of MSIM's flagship market-neutral equity platform.

Key Responsibilities

• Perform factor attribution and portfolio exposure analysis across managers and strategies.
• Develop and enhance portfolio construction and optimization methodologies.
• Research new alpha signals and evaluate interactions with portfolio positioning.
• Design quantitative tools supporting investment decision making.
• Conduct stress testing and scenario analysis across portfolios.
• Monitor fund-wide exposures across portfolios and identify concentrations or emerging risks.
• Partner with trading to improve execution and implementation efficiency.
• Monitor market developments and proactively communicate portfolio risks, opportunities, and positioning implications to portfolio managers and senior leadership.
• Analyze portfolio performance and attribute returns across factors, sectors, themes, and individual positions.
• Design and develop Python-based analytical tools, research infrastructure, and automation that improve portfolio analytics and investment workflows.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• 2-5 years of relevant job experience, preferably on the buy side in a multi-manager platform.
• Strong understanding of equity markets, equity index futures, and market-neutral portfolio construction.
• Experience with equity risk models, such as MSCI Barra, Axioma, or in-house models.
• Deep knowledge of statistical methods and quantitative techniques.
• Proficiency with Python and SQL.
• Experience working with large financial datasets and time series.
• Experience with portfolio optimization, stress testing, and simulations.
• Demonstrated interest in financial markets and a passion for quantitative investing.
• Excellent verbal communication and relationship management skills.
• Ability to work both independently and be a strong team contributor with proactive drive to deliver results.
• Outstanding attention to detail and committed to process and related improvements.
• Flexible, quick learner with the ability to multi-task.
• Advanced degree in a quantitative discipline such as Mathematics, Statistics, Engineering, Computer Science, or a closely related field from an accredited university.

Ideal Candidate: Intellectually curious, collaborative, enjoys solving complex investment problems using data and quantitative methods, comfortable building research tools, analyzing risk, and engaging with portfolio managers. Possesses strong communication skills, thrives in a fast-paced investment environment, and can translate sophisticated quantitative analyses into actionable insights.