Bio: I was born and grew up in Russia but moved to Canada in 1995. During grad school at the University of Toronto, I started working at a bank in the Risk Management Department, focusing mainly on credit risk modelling. It was a quant role and involved a lot of programming, which I always enjoyed. In 2002, the bank moved me to London and I continued doing similar work, but now for a Credit Derivatives trading desk. At around this time, Quantifi was founded, and my company became their first client. As a quant on the credit desk, I was very likely the first ever user of Quantifi’s software! During the next few years, I transitioned to a correlation trading role within Structured Credit. At the time of the financial crisis of 2008, I moved to another company, which was also a client of Quantifi’s. Quantifi’s software helped us immensely to navigate some of the toughest conditions anyone has ever seen in the financial markets at that time. Later, my career took a turn away from Structured Credit and I had several roles as a sell-side trader/market-maker over the last 10 years.
I was always interested in technology and gained a lot of experience in finance over the years, so was very happy to join Quantifi last year as a product manager. This role allows me to utilise my experience in fixed income markets, understanding of the client’s needs, and even allows me to do some programming. It is also a very client-facing role, and I get involved in a lot of sales and marketing activities, such as product demos, conferences and webinars. I also often work closely with the Professional Services team on some of the support cases.
Interesting Project: One of the most interesting projects that I worked on here so far was introduction of a new data science-enabled framework and creating a new way of integrating various components of our systems together. It was good to see the project through from inception of the idea to our first paying client using it in production.
What I like about Quantifi: I really enjoy the atmosphere in the office – both in person and online. Everyone is very accessible and friendly, no matter what level. Another thing that I like is learning a lot about areas of technology and finance that I was not exposed to before as well as having an opportunity to teach and, hopefully, inspire the next generation.
I really enjoy the atmosphere in the office – both in person and online. Everyone is very accessible and friendly, no matter what level.
Fun fact: My kids always liked Lego – and as they were growing up and I was helping them build it, I also started liking it more and more. At some point I realized that I may even be more interested in building Lego models than they are, especially the large complex Technic ones. I particularly enjoy modifying the original designs to motorize them and making them remote-controllable. I’ve built up quite a collection of my own!