careers

Employees

FORT seeks creative, intelligent, self-aware and numerate colleagues who are curious about global financial markets and investing. Successful employees often have educational degrees in mathematics, computer science, and economics; advanced degrees and STEM backgrounds are not a prerequisite to employment. FORT’s diverse workforce includes people from around the world with extraordinary practical experience as well as extraordinary academic credentials, tied together by common interest in compounding for clients and working in a friendly but challenging environment that mixes individual and team achievement.

Culture

FORT is committed to fostering a culture of diversity and inclusion. The collective sum of the individual differences and life experiences of FORT’s employees is a valuable component of our culture, reputation, and achievements. Our goal is to bring together the best and the brightest in a dynamic environment that inspires high performance, innovation and welcomes diverse views.

What We Look for

Smart

Creative

Team-oriented

Effective communication skills

Self-motivated, can-do attitude

High level of ownership

Ability to prioritize and focus on multiple tasks

Ability to handle diverse, challenging assignments

What We offer

Competitive
compensation and
bonus package

Attractive
benefits plans and
paid time off

Flexibility
for work /
life balance

Professional
learning and
development
opportunities

Opportunities

Data Scientist\Statistician

Chevy Chase, MD

Head of Data Strategy and Sourcing

Chevy Chase, MD

Software Engineer – Trading

Chevy Chase, MD

Apply for Position

Data Scientist\Statistician

Firm Overview

FORT is a hedge fund with $6 billion in AUM, located in metro Washington, DC and New York City. Founded in 1993, the firm develops and implements proprietary, fully automated, systematic trading strategies in global equity, rates, FX and commodity markets. The majority of the firm’s activity is over medium and long-term investment horizons based on a variety of fundamental and price data and using myriad quantitative and AI techniques.

Job Summary

The Data Scientist/Statistician is responsible for quantitative analysis of financial data; collecting and distilling rich research datasets from varied sources; and in depth analysis of data to aide and support FORT’s systematic investment programs.

Summary of essential job functions

Collection, cleaning and normalization of structured and unstructured financial data into meaningful and high quality data.
Define problem statement and design studies to identify most important aspects of data.
Creative application of data preparation and data analysis skills to iteratively identify hidden facets of data.
Presentation of research findings, recommendations and conclusions along with visual representation of results for wider consumption.
Represent the team to key internal stakeholders while collaborating with the wider research unit and multidisciplinary teams.
Contribute to the development of best practices, improve quality, efficiency and effectiveness.
Translate high-level projects into technical tasks.

Minimum Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree; advanced degree preferred in Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Finance, Economics, Engineering or a related field
Strong academic background
Strong analytical and quantitative skills
Fluency in one or more of the statistical programming languages: R, STATA, Python and SAS
Working knowledge of one or more of the following programming languages: C, C++, C#, Python, and JAVA
Aptitude in critical thinking and problem solving
Excellent verbal, written and interpersonal communication skills, including an ability to translate statistical methods and findings for a non-technical audience
Demonstrated organizational and time management skills
Demonstrated ability to work independently, with limited supervision in a fast-paced environment

Apply

Apply for Position

Head of Data Strategy and Sourcing

Firm Overview

Job Summary

The Head of Data Strategy and Sourcing will lead all data efforts within FORT and will be responsible for setting vision and direction for the firm in regards to management, use, and acquisition of data. This includes building, maintaining and re-architecting applications that support FORT production trading and modeling systems and managing real-time streaming data and EOD market data across myriad asset classes. The role combines hands-on coding and problem solving with leadership skills including engagement of IT Development Staff and FORT Researchers. The position is a senior level role within FORT with exposure to all aspects of FORT’s business including clients.

Summary of essential job functions

Provide 24/5 production support for data related applications.
Provide visionary thought leadership in establishing a data governance process to ensure the highest quality data is stored within FORT’s systems.
Understands the nuances and details of various types of market data (e.g. tick data, OHLC data, equity, bond, futures, FX, interest rate) and has an obsessive desire to ensuring high quality, error free data.
Provide visionary thought leadership to improve current data processes by analyzing and rearchitecting legacy software and processes.
Act as the steward and visionary thought leader to procure, normalize, cleanse, maintain and expose data sets to support all current and future research efforts, including strategy and execution research.
Work with internal stakeholders (including CTO, trade operations, PRA, Research, software development team) to understand, analyze, prioritize, plan and execute projects and tasks successfully.
Provide effective mentorship and management of direct reports to enable them to reach their full potential.
Execute full lifecycle application development plans to include – requirements gathering and analysis, documentation, software architecture and design, implementation, testing, deployment and production support.
Respond quickly and efficiently to the changing needs of the organization as needs arise and change.
Ensure high quality software releases by leading and espousing FORT’s software development process.
Create and maintain software architectural documents for all data software applications.
Clearly and effectively communicate and articulate ideas.

Minimum Requirements

10-15 years of experience in design and development, documentation and testing of applications
BS/MS in Computer Science, Engineering or a related field
Strong experience with C#, Java, C++, or other modern object oriented programing language
Strong aptitude for design patterns, object oriented principals, complex algorithms and data structures
Experience in developing multithreaded programs
Experience with network programming, IP protocols and message buses
Expert knowledge of T-SQL, SQL Server or relational database design and development
Experience in building distributed systems
Experience in full lifecycle software development and agile development
Experience in building and supporting highly available, mission critical systematic equities/futures trading systems is desirable
Experience working with large time series, financial times series metrics (e.g., VaR, exposure, attribution)
Experience with S&P Capital IQ Compustat database and Bloomberg API is a big plus.

Apply

Apply for Position

Software Engineer – Trading

Firm Overview

Job Summary

The Trading team within the Software Development Group responsible for designing and building automated, algorithmic trading software used by FORT for portfolio management and trading. The trading software is one of the most critical and visible components of FORT, trading billions in AUM around the clock in multiple asset classes. The system is designed using an extensible architecture to adapt to new strategies. A highly reliable, low latency messaging system is used to communicate orders, fills and events in a loosely coupled manner. Key components of the system includes the order management system, execution management system, FIX connectivity and a highly reliable database.

This position is responsible for designing and developing various applications for our automated trading and in futures, equities markets and other markets. The ideal candidate will be a role model and take full ownership of development projects from inception to post production support.

This role involves significant hands-on development. It requires strong experience in an object oriented programming language (C#, C++, Java) and experience in multithreaded programming as well as network programming skills (TCP-IP, UDP, multicast, message buses). Expert knowledge of SQL Server is required.

Summary of essential job functions

Design, develop, test and document trading applications to serve our growing hedge fund.
Become an integral part of our technology team, understand existing business practices and proprietary software systems.
Work closely with the trade desk to develop new software.
Execute full lifecycle application development plans to include – requirements gathering and analysis, documentation, software architecture and design, implementation, testing, deployment and production support.
Analysis of financial and time series data; Data munging and normalization for research and development efforts.

Minimum Requirements

5+ years of experience in design and development, documentation and testing of applications
BS/MS in Computer Science, Engineering or a related field
Experience with C#, Java, C++, or other modern object oriented language
Strong aptitude for design patterns, object oriented principals, complex algorithms and data structures
Experience in developing multithreaded programs
Experience with network programming, IP protocols and message buses
SQL Server or relational database design and development
Experience in building distributed systems
Experience in full lifecycle software development and agile development
Experience in building and supporting highly available, mission critical systematic equities/futures trading systems is desirable
Experience with S&P Capital IQ Compustat database and Bloomberg API is a big plus.
Ability to read, understand and maintain legacy code bases
Ability to clearly and effectively communicate and articulate ideas
Team player with the highest standards of integrity, honesty and mutual consideration
Strong technical and problem-solving skills, attention to detail, ability to think creatively
Keen interest in learning latest technologies and software development practices

Apply