Quantitative Risk Analyst — Derivatives & Clearing

ABOUT POLYMARKET Polymarket is the world's largest prediction market platform. We enable individuals to express views on real-world events by trading on outcomes across politics, economics, sports, culture, and current affairs. Built as a peer-to-peer marketplace with no centralized "house," Polymarket aggregates diverse opinions into transparent, market-based probabilities that reflect collective expectations about the future. We're growing fast — both in terms of volume ($21B traded in 2025) and adoption as an alternative news source. Our ambition is to become a ubiquitous beacon of truth in global media and we need your help adding fuel to the fire. ABOUT THE ROLE Polymarket is hiring a Quantitative Risk Analyst to design and implement enterprise-scale risk models at the heart of our clearing operation. You'll own models for market risk, volatility and correlation of derivatives, stress testing, and automated liquidation — the systems that keep the platform solvent and users protected in fast-moving markets. This is a hands-on role: you'll be building models in production code, not just specifying them. We expect you to work fluently with AI tools for development and research — and to be the skeptic in the room, pressure-testing AI-generated models and code against well-established risk frameworks before anything ships. WHAT YOU'LL DO - Design, implement, and maintain enterprise-scale risk models covering market risk, margin, and counterparty exposure for a clearing organization - Build volatility and correlation models for derivatives, including calibration, backtesting, and ongoing model validation - Develop and run stress-testing frameworks: historical scenarios, hypothetical shocks, and reverse stress tests - Design and tune auto-liquidation logic — trigger thresholds, liquidation waterfalls, and safeguards against cascading liquidations - Use AI tools extensively to accelerate model development, coding, and research — and rigorously validate AI outputs against established risk models before deployment - Monitor model performance in production, investigate breaks, and iterate quickly - Partner with engineering, trading, and product teams to embed risk controls into platform architecture - Document model assumptions, limitations, and validation results to an audit-ready standard WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR - 5–7 years of quantitative risk experience at a clearinghouse, exchange, prime broker, trading firm, or similar - Proven expertise designing and implementing risk models at enterprise scale — production systems, not just research prototypes - Deep experience modeling volatility, correlation, option skews, and option pricing at scale for trad-fi derivatives, perpetuals, and fully collateralized event contracts - Hands-on experience with market risk modeling, stress testing, and auto-liquidation mechanics in a clearing context - Strong fluency with AI-assisted development and coding, paired with the judgment to pressure-test AI outputs against well-established risk models and catch what looks plausible but is wrong - Expert-level Python (NumPy, pandas, SciPy; solid software engineering practices) - Advanced degree in a quantitative field (math, statistics, physics, financial engineering, CS) or equivalent experience - Strong mathematical foundation in stochastic calculus and linear algebra - (Plus) C# and/or C++ for performance-critical or production systems - (Plus) Familiarity with crypto market structure, perpetuals, or prediction markets - (Plus) Experience with CCP risk frameworks (CPMI-IOSCO PFMI, default management, margin methodology) - (Plus) Experience building real-time risk systems BENEFITS - Competitive salary & equity - Unlimited PTO - Full Health, Vision, & Dental coverage - 401k match - Hardware setup: new MacBook Pro, big display, & accessories