About Betterment

Betterment is a leading, technology-driven financial services company that offers investing and retirement solutions for retail investors and investment advisors as well as financial wellness solutions, including a 401(k) for small and medium-sized businesses. Our team is passionate about our mission: making people’s lives better. We’re headquartered in NYC and offer hybrid NY-based positions (three days/ week in-office).

About the role

Betterment’s Investing Team provides the domain expertise required to build all product solutions that deliver financial advice to its customers. Integrated closely with the Capital Markets, Operations, Product, and Engineering teams, we engage in rigorous R&D and iteration to create long-term value and efficiencies for our clients. As a Quantitative Researcher, you will primarily be responsible for executing the team’s portfolio management and advice tool processes, contributing to the development of our advice-driven algorithms, verifying that we’re in compliance with existing regulations, and contributing to financial market research and content creation as necessary. You will be reporting to a seasoned quantitative researcher on the Investing Team.

We’re seeking someone with significant experience in both code development and quantitative investing. You should be analytically minded, with a deep passion for making investing better, combined with a strong attention to detail. To be successful in this role, you will be curious, resourceful, and hands-on, with a “roll your sleeves up” attitude toward getting your work done. You will be joining a team that cares deeply about the product, doing the right thing, and motivating others to always keep serving the customer top of mind. This role will also provide exposure to each of Betterment’s retail customer, financial advisor, and 401(k) plan sponsor lines of business.

This role is based out of our NYC office. Below we’ve reflected the base salary range we would offer for this position. Actual salaries may vary depending on factors including but not limited to location, experience, and performance. The range listed is just one component of Betterment’s total compensation package for employees.

New York City: $130,000 - $165,000

We offer a competitive equity package, health, dental and vision benefits, life and AD&D, short-term and long-term disability insurance, EAP, commuter and parking benefits FSA/HSA, and 401(k) with employer match as well as a flexible PTO policy. This job may also be eligible for variable compensation in the form of a company incentive bonus. For jobs based out of our NYC HQ, we require in office attendance Tuesday through Thursday, weekly.

A day in the life

Iterate on the development of code for both Research & Development and Production environments
Maintain internal analytic libraries and tools that impact our portfolio construction and advice infrastructure
Own recurring workflows involving the updating and maintenance of portfolio allocations and assumptions driving our advice tools
Assist with automating processes, ongoing analyses, and quality assurance processes
Contribute to the researching, prototyping, reviewing and implementation of the quantitative methods that drive our client advice and trading execution algorithms.
Build strategic and trusted relationships with our Capital Markets, Product, and Engineering teams to help bring investing products to life
Interface with compliance and legal teams to help ensure appropriate governance and documentation of Betterment portfolio management and advice
Answer client and internal stakeholder questions on Betterment’s approach to investing and our advice tools
Support the team with writing, researching, and analyzing content on the performance of financial markets and the macroeconomy and how both have influenced returns of all Betterment investment portfolios
Assist with the creation and improvement of portfolio-management-related materials for internal and external audiences, including slides presented to the Betterment Executive Investment Committee, Algorithm Governance Committee, Crypto Investing Committee, portfolio factsheets, market insight publications, and webinar presentations

What we’re looking for

3-5 years of experience in financial services
Strong mathematical foundation with hands-on experience in quantitative and statistical techniques
Experience writing production-quality, scalable, efficient code for reliable testing
Strong knowledge of SQL and Python or R
Experience with Git and Julia is advantageous
Resourcefulness, efficiency, and ability to conduct independent research
Clear and effective communication skills (both verbal and written)

What being at Betterment means for you

We change lives

Join a community of innovators working to transform financial outcomes for real people. Your work will make an impact, always laddering up to our mission: making people’s lives better.

We set audacious goals

We set them for the company, our customers, and ourselves—and we won’t stop until we reach them. We don’t just show up; we give our all, then celebrate our wins.

We value all perspectives

When we collaborate, we’re at our best. We believe diverse perspectives lead to better outcomes and strive to uphold our supportive and inclusive community.

We invest in you with:

A competitive suite of benefits, including: medical, dental, and vision insurance; life and AD&D insurance; STD and LTD benefits, including infertility support and World Professional Association for Transgender Health approved benefits; and generous parental leave.
Flexible paid time off (and encouragement to use it!)
Meaningful opportunity for community building through our 7 Employee Resource Groups
Empowerment to own and lead change and affect the business
Dedicated professional development opportunities
Lunch from our in-house chef three days a week at our NYC headquarters

What happens next

We’ll take a few weeks to review all applications. If we’d like to spend more time with you, we’ll reach out to arrange next steps, which will include 3-4 sets of meetings with your future colleagues.

In the interview process, we’ll look to learn more about your skills, experiences, capabilities, and motivators. Many of our questions will be aimed at understanding how you might operate here at Betterment. Depending on the role, we may ask you to complete a case study exercise or technical assessments, as we want to collect a robust set of data points to better inform our decisions.

On average, it takes us around 3-5 weeks to make a hiring decision, depending on your availability and sense of urgency. As a best practice, we aim to interview at least 2-3 final round candidates before making a hiring decision. Please note that, as we usually receive an overwhelming number of applications for open positions, we’re unable to offer individual feedback during the interview process.

We recognize that interviewing for a new role is a big deal. We appreciate you considering Betterment as the next step in your career, and our Recruiting Team is here to support and advocate for you through the interview process!

Betterment is dedicated to providing accommodations to candidates upon request. If you need accommodations at any point throughout the interview process, please reach out to your recruiter.

Please note that in any materials you submit, you may redact or remove age-identifying information such as age, date of birth, or dates of school attendance or graduation. You will not be penalized for redacting or removing this information.

Come join us!

We’re an equal opportunity employer and comply with all applicable federal, state, and local fair employment practices laws. We strictly prohibit and do not tolerate discrimination against employees, applicants, or any other covered persons because of race, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, sex, gender (including gender nonconformity and status as a transgender or transsexual individual), sexual orientation, marital status, age, physical or mental disability, citizenship, past, current or prospective service in the uniformed services, predisposing genetic characteristic, domestic violence victim status, arrest records, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state or local law.

E-Verify Statement

Betterment participates in E-Verify. We will provide the Social Security Administration, and if necessary, the Department of Homeland Security, with information from each new employee’s Form I-9 to confirm work authorization. Please note that we do not use this information to pre-screen job applicants.
E-Verify Notice
E-Verify Notice (Spanish)
Right to Work Notice
Right to Work Notice (Spanish)

CPRA Language - CA Applicants ONLY

We collect and store personal information for the purposes of candidate tracking (for this role and future opportunities). The information you provide in the course of completing your application will be kept for up to 24 months. We use tools provided by third-party service providers but do not share candidate information for any purpose other than for recruiting. To access the data that is collected, request deletion or to make updates to your candidate profile, please email [email protected].

Compensation Overview

About Betterment

About the role

A day in the life

What we’re looking for

What being at Betterment means for you

What happens next

6 month growth

1 year growth

2 year growth

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

What critics are saying

What makes Betterment unique