Charles describes ESG and sustainable investing, with a deep dive into one technique, from the lens of the Alpha Gen Model Engineering team in their journey towards generating sustainable alpha. — By: Charles Malenfant, Quantitative Developer in the Alpha Engineering Team Data: the driver of it all Data is at the core of every modern engineering story and this story is no exception. First off, let’s define a few key (pun) concepts. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are the most granular units of ­­­­data here and represent a…

Menyhert describes the new Aladdin Economic Scenario Simulator and the various High-Performance Computing (HPC) techniques that they are using to build an interactive framework for users to run tens of thousands of portfolio simulations in seconds. — By: Menyhert Hegedűs, Director on the Portfolio Simulation team in BlackRock’s Analytics & Modeling team Analyzing value and risk of financial instruments is a key component of finance. To do this well we need models that are often extremely complex and, therefore, need a lot of compute power. …

Diana describes the benefits and challenges of organizing frontend code in a monorepo. — By: Diana Costea, Frontend Engineer, Digital Distribution Tech The Digital Distribution Tech (DDT) team at BlackRock builds and maintains the Advisor Center (AC) tool suite. Advisor Center is a set of free-to-use Aladdin based portfolio analysis and proposal tools which help financial advisors scale their practices and build better portfolios…

By: Kathleen Burkhardt, Software Developer, Aladdin UX Engineering Team Introduction This past July was Disability Pride Month. July was chosen to commemorate the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. To me, Disability Pride means being able to embrace my true self. Being neurodivergent has given me a unique lens into…

Shaila discusses deploying complex changes to complex systems and the value a structured readiness approach can bring. — By: Shaila Abraham “If I had nine hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first six sharpening my axe.” - Abraham Lincoln We will start with the story of the beginnings of Toyota Automotive Manufacturer. Toyota had the focus on manufacturing high quality vehicles that are reliable and…

We sat down with Sitija Sarkar, Director and Head of Aladdin User Experience Engineering, to discuss her work and what she’s learned in more than a decade at BlackRock. — You’ve spent your entire career at BlackRock working on Aladdin, BlackRock’s investment and risk management technology platform. What is it about Aladdin that has kept you here? It is incredible to think that it has been more than ten years since I joined BlackRock as an engineering Analyst. Since then, I have grown to be a Senior Engineering Team Director leading the Aladdin UX Engineering team.

AI Labs Researcher Gabriel and Quant Engineer Cristian share an open-source package for multi-objective hyperparameter optimization. By: Gabriel Maher, Data Scientist, AI Labs Cristian Matache, Quant Engineer, BlackRock Systematic Stephen Boyd, Senior Advisor, co-head AI Labs Mykel Kochenderfer, Senior Advisor, AI Labs Alex Ulitsky, Managing Director, Portfolio Modeling Slava Yukhymuk, Director, Portfolio Modeling Leonid Kopman, Vice…

BlackRock Co-Sponsors of our Girls Who Code partnership speak with BlackRock volunteers about their experience working with the students each summer. By: Alexis McKeown, BlackRock Digital Workplace lead & Girls Who Code Co-Sponsor for SF & Neeraj Goel, BlackRock Engineering lead for Aladdin & Girls Who Code Co-Sponsor for SF …

Shreemoyee describes the elegance and beauty of not having to explicitly mention variable types in C++ by using the ‘auto’ keyword. By: Shreemoyee Sarkar is a Quantitative Developer in the Financial Modeling Group Prologue It was a beautiful summer night in Budapest. The Danube was babbling in front of me with…