Job Description

About the position

At CERN’s Pension Fund, you will apply your technical skills in a practical, real-world setting. You will work in a team of software developers / quants who provide guidance and support, while also having plenty of room for creativity and experimentation. Thanks to the small team size and rapid deployment cycles, your work will have a high and immediate impact on the organisation.

We are searching for a skilled Python Quant Developer to support the design, development, and implementation of financial trading strategies. This role requires a strong background in software engineering combined with quantitative analysis skills. You will collaborate closely with the Investment Group to build innovative tools, optimise trading strategies and enhance the Fund’s technological capabilities.

The project the team is working on plays a key role in testing and deploying trading strategies, analysing investment products and generating reports. It processes large volumes of data and runs complex calculations to support informed decision-making.

Additionally, the project focuses on providing the Investment Group with tools to monitor and improve the quality and performance of investments. The system helps portfolio and risk managers analyse both market data and the investment portfolio.

Specifically, you will:

• Work with large volumes of financial data, gaining an in-depth understanding of internal databases.
• Develop Python-based functionalities to retrieve, clean, and process financial data.
• Contribute to the design, development, testing, and deployment of solutions for algorithmic financial strategies.
• Optimise and enhance existing trading algorithms and systems as needed.
• Provide support and troubleshooting for existing infrastructure, trading algorithms, and develop new reporting tools.

Your profile

Skills

Required:

• Proficiency in Python programming.
• Familiarity with the Python data science stack (NumPy, Pandas, etc.).
• Competency in Git.
• Experience working with relational databases.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication and teamwork abilities.

Desired:

• Professional experience in quantitative finance or algorithmic trading.
• Knowledge of financial instruments and market structures.
• Experience with backtesting frameworks and statistical modelling.
• Good understanding of OOP principles.
• Familiarity with unit and integration testing.

Language skills:

• Spoken and written English, with a commitment to learn French.

Eligibility criteria:

• You are a national of a CERN Member or Associate Member State.
• By the application deadline, you have a maximum of two years of professional experience since graduation in Computer Science (or a related field) and your highest educational qualification is either a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree.
• You have never had a CERN fellow or graduate contract before.
• Applicants without University degree are not eligible.
• Applicants with a PhD are not eligible.

Additional Information

Job closing date: 21st of April at 23:59 (midnight) CET.

Contract duration: 24 months, with a possible extension up to 36 months maximum.

Working hours: 40 hours per week

Target start date: 01-July-2025

Job reference: PF-IN-QM-2025-62-GRAE

Field of work: Data Science & Data Analytics

What we offer

• A monthly stipend ranging between 5196 and 5716 Swiss Francs (net of tax).
• Coverage by CERN’s comprehensive health scheme (for yourself, your spouse and children), and membership of the CERN Pension Fund.
• Depending on your individual circumstances: installation grant; family, child and infant allowances; payment of travel expenses at the beginning and end of contract.
• 30 days of paid leave per year.
• On-the-job and formal training at CERN as well as in-house language courses for English and/or French.

About us

At CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, physicists and engineers are probing the fundamental structure of the universe. Using the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments, they study the basic constituents of matter – fundamental particles that are made to collide together at close to the speed of light. The process gives physicists clues about how particles interact, and provides insights into the fundamental laws of nature. Find out more on http://home.cern.

Diversity has been an integral part of CERN’s mission since its foundation and is an established value of the Organization. Employing a diverse workforce is central to our success.