Location: Nariman Point, Mumbai

Markets: Indian Listed Derivatives – NSE, BSE & MCX

Role Type: Portfolio Management | Systematic Trading | Pod Leadership

About the Company

Northstar Quant is a fully systematic, delta-neutral investment manager focused on India’s listed futures and options markets.

We combine systematic strategies, disciplined portfolio construction, robust risk management and institutional-grade execution to build investment programs designed specifically for Indian markets.

Backed by

Crest Ventures Ltd. A publicly listed group with three decades of building businesses across financial services and investments.

Job Summary:

We are looking for an experienced Senior Portfolio Manager to lead and own a systematic trading pod.

This is a senior, hands-on investment role with direct accountability for the pod’s strategies, capital, team, risk and P&L .

The successful candidate will manage a live systematic derivatives portfolio, set the research agenda, develop quantitative traders and researchers, and operate within Northstar’s investment and risk framework.

Key Responsibilities:

▪ Pod leadership: Build and lead a high-performing team of quantitative traders and researchers; set priorities, assign ownership, uphold research standards and mentor talent.

▪ Portfolio & P&L ownership: Take direct responsibility for risk-adjusted returns, drawdowns, capital efficiency and portfolio stability across the pod.

▪ Portfolio construction: Allocate capital across strategies, instruments, expiries and holding periods using expected return, correlation, liquidity, capacity and cost.

▪ Strategy development: Lead research, validation and deployment of systematic futures and options strategies; distinguish durable edge from overfit or regime-specific results.

▪ Risk management: Own position sizing, exposure, concentration, liquidity, drawdown and tail-risk controls; stress test gap, volatility, correlation and market-disruption scenarios.

▪ Execution: Oversee implementation, hedging, rolling and expiry management; improve fill quality, slippage, impact and operational reliability.

▪ Lifecycle decisions: Evaluate strategies continuously and make timely decisions to scale, reduce, modify, pause or retire them.

▪ Performance discipline: Attribute results across strategies, instruments, risk factors, market regimes and execution; explain deviations between backtested and realised performance.

▪ Cross-functional partnership: Work closely with Northstar’s technology, data, execution and risk teams to strengthen the pod’s infrastructure and live controls.

▪ Reporting: Provide clear, accurate updates to senior management on pod performance, exposures, drawdowns, capacity, risks and material developments.

Market Coverage

Develop and manage strategies across Indian listed derivatives venues, including NSE, BSE and MCX, as well as other relevant exchanges and trading venues as the opportunity set evolves. Coverage may span index and single-stock futures and options, commodities and related instruments, subject to liquidity, capacity and the firm’s mandate.

Experience & Capabilities

▪ ~10 years of relevant Indian markets experience, with meaningful responsibility for live systematic trading, portfolio management or proprietary capital.

▪ A credible record of owning portfolio outcomes and managing through different market regimes, including elevated volatility and periods of stress.

▪ Demonstrated leadership experience managing, mentoring or developing quantitative traders, researchers or a comparable investment team.

▪ Deep knowledge of Indian market structure, exchange mechanics, expiry behaviour, margining, liquidity and execution across relevant listed derivatives venues.

▪ Advanced understanding of options pricing, Greeks, skew, term structure, volatility, relative-value and market-neutral strategies.

▪ Strong portfolio construction and risk skills covering diversification, correlation, sizing, capacity, drawdowns, nonlinear exposure and tail risk.

▪ Ability to challenge backtests for overfitting, look-ahead and survivorship bias, unstable parameters, unrealistic costs and weak implementation assumptions.

▪ Strong quantitative and analytical ability, including proficiency in Python or a comparable research environment and comfort with large intraday, options-chain and market data sets.

▪ Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD in a rigorous analytical discipline such as mathematics, statistics, engineering, computer science, physics, quantitative finance or economics.

What Success Looks Like

▪ Assume clear ownership of a defined pod, its people and a live systematic derivatives portfolio.

▪ Deliver performance within agreed risk and drawdown limits while improving diversification, execution quality and capital efficiency.

▪ Build a focused research pipeline and deploy robust new strategies with documented sources of edge and realistic capacity assumptions.

▪ Strengthen the pod’s monitoring, attribution, research discipline and portfolio-level controls.

▪ Scale the team and portfolio without compromising risk standards, accountability or research quality.

The Person

A calm, decisive and intellectually honest investor with strong commercial judgement, quantitative rigour and deep respect for risk. You set high standards without ego, communicate clearly with technical teams, and take personal accountability for both people and investment outcomes.

Sr. Portfolio Manager - Systematic Derivatives

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