Portfolio Research Associate

About this role

BlackRock is the world's largest and most prominent investment management firms, managing trillions of dollars in assets for institutions, governments, and individuals worldwide. We offer a wide range of investment products and services, including mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and alternative investments, catering to various investor needs and risk appetites. BlackRock has embraced technology in its operations and investment strategies, utilizing advanced analytics, machine learning, and data-driven insights to enhance decision-making processes and optimize portfolio performance.

The BlackRock Investment Institute (BII) leverages BlackRock's expertise and produces proprietary research to provide insights on the global economy, markets, geopolitics, and long-term asset allocation - all to help clients and portfolio managers navigate financial markets. We systematically leverage BlackRock’s expertise in markets, asset classes, and client segments to help our portfolio managers deliver positive investment results for clients. Our focus is to keep our investment professionals connected, informed, and on the cutting edge of investment thinking.

Why is your role important?

BII research crafts the portfolio building blocks core to BlackRock’s mission to build a better financial future for its clients. By bringing together the best macro and market perspectives with cutting-edge portfolio construction techniques, BII distils what a complex world means for allocating investments.

The candidate will be responsible for conducting research across asset classes and portfolio construction, including building and maintaining our industry-leading Capital Market Assumptions. This role spans a wide set of research domains, encompassing the integration of public and private markets, the development of advanced projection frameworks, and the use of AI-enabled tools to enhance the scale, quality and repeatability of research workflows. The role will have a particular focus on strengthening BII’s private markets research capability, including how private assets are modelled, projected, compared with public markets and incorporated into whole-portfolio asset allocation frameworks. The role will also help shape how AI is embedded into the research process itself, combining investment judgement, quantitative modelling and agentic workflows to make portfolio research more dynamic, repeatable and scalable without compromising analytical rigor.

Working closely with portfolio managers, private markets specialists, researchers, technology partners and other stakeholders, you will translate this research into investable solutions and help reimagine how proprietary research IP can be converted into agentic workflows, decision-support tools and scalable analytical processes. As such, your research will underpin asset allocations over strategic horizons that give BlackRock’s clients the whole-portfolio perspective that they need today, while helping the Portfolio Research Group build a more AI-forward research platform for the future.

What will you be doing?

• Core portfolio research

  • Generating BlackRock’s industry-leading, climate-aware Capital Market Assumptions, including the development of new quantitative models to project asset returns through time.
  • Building our next-generation macroeconomic and asset pricing stochastic simulation framework, playing a central role in its research and development.
  • Designing improved asset allocation processes with analytics that enhance portfolio construction and support clients’ long-term investment objectives.
  • Participating in global client engagement and contributing to internal and external stakeholder communications, particularly around strategic asset allocation, private markets and whole-portfolio construction.

• Private markets research

  • Developing and enhancing private markets capital market assumptions across asset classes such as private equity, private credit, real estate, infrastructure and other alternative assets.
  • Building analytical frameworks to compare public and private market opportunities on a consistent basis, including expected return, risk, liquidity, valuation, drawdown, cash-flow and implementation considerations.
  • Developing, applying and analyzing quantitative models for private markets, portfolio optimization and whole-portfolio construction.

• AI-enabled research transformation

  • Partnering directly with Portfolio Research Group subject-matter experts to translate proprietary research IP, models and recurring analytical processes into AI-enabled workflows, tools and decision-support systems.
  • Reimagining research workflows, moving beyond automation to redesign how portfolio research is generated, updated, governed, scaled and delivered to internal and external stakeholders.
  • Designing, prototyping and deploying AI-powered tools, copilots and agentic systems that support capital market assumptions, strategic asset allocation, portfolio construction, stochastic simulation, private markets research and client-facing investment insights.
  • Applying AI and data-driven tools to improve the scalability and consistency of private markets research, including data ingestion, document analysis, benchmarking, scenario analysis and repeatable investment diagnostics.
  • Building human-in-the-loop AI research workflows that combine data, models, retrieval systems, analytical code and narrative generation into governed, repeatable processes for producing portfolio insights.

What are we looking for?

Qualifications

• A demonstrably quantitative and creative mind, with a degree in a quantitative field, such as economics, finance, engineering, physics, mathematics, statistics, computer science or a related discipline.
• Hands-on experience with GenAI tools, large language models, retrieval-augmented generation, prompt orchestration, agentic workflows, evaluation frameworks and workflow automation.
• Practical understanding of software development principles, including modular design, version control, testing, documentation, deployment and maintainability.
• Strong understanding of the use of computer technology in financial and economic research, with strong programming skills, for example in Python, R or related statistical packages.
• Strong statistical modelling and data analysis skills, with experience applying quantitative techniques to financial markets, asset pricing, portfolio construction or private markets research.
• Strong communication skills and ability to distil research for broad consumption.
• Open-minded thought process and intellectual curiosity.
• Intuition for, and a passion for, financial markets, with experience in the finance sector or a strong interest in investment research.
• Familiarity with private markets, alternative assets or illiquid asset classes, including areas such as private equity, private credit, real estate, infrastructure, liquidity modelling, cash-flow modelling or manager dispersion.
• Motivated team player, flexible in approach and able to work independently.
• Responsive with keen attention to detail.

For New York, NY Only the salary range for this position is USD$116,000.00 - USD$155,000.00 . Additionally, employees are eligible for an annual discretionary bonus, and benefits including healthcare, leave benefits, and retirement benefits. BlackRock operates a pay-for-performance compensation philosophy and your total compensation may vary based on role, location, and firm, department and individual performance.

Our benefits

To help you stay energized, engaged and inspired, we offer a wide range of benefits including a strong retirement plan, tuition reimbursement, comprehensive healthcare, support for working parents and Flexible Time Off (FTO) so you can relax, recharge and be there for the people you care about.

Our hybrid work model

BlackRock’s hybrid work model is designed to enable a culture of collaboration and apprenticeship that enriches the experience of our employees, while supporting flexibility for all. Employees are currently required to work at least 4 days in the office per week, with the flexibility to work from home 1 day a week. Some business groups may require more time in the office due to their roles and responsibilities. We remain focused on increasing the impactful moments that arise when we work together in person – aligned with our commitment to performance and innovation. As a new joiner, you can count on this hybrid model to accelerate your learning and onboarding experience here at BlackRock.

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Guidance on AI use for candidates**

At BlackRock, AI has long been part of how we work – enhancing decision-making, improving operations, and helping us deliver better outcomes for clients. We encourage candidates to use AI thoughtfully to learn, prepare, and work more effectively; but during our interview process, we want to focus on getting to know you through your own experiences, thinking, and judgment. To support you, we’ve provided guidance on when and how to use AI during our hiring process so you can approach each step with confidence and showcase your best self.

About BlackRock

At BlackRock, we are all connected by one mission: to help more and more people experience financial well-being.  Our clients, and the people they serve, are saving for retirement, paying for their children’s educations, buying homes and starting businesses. Their investments also help to strengthen the global economy: support businesses small and large; finance infrastructure projects that connect and power cities; and facilitate innovations that drive progress.

This mission would not be possible without our smartest investment – the one we make in our employees. It’s why we’re dedicated to creating an environment where our colleagues feel welcomed, valued and supported with networks, benefits and development opportunities to help them thrive.

To learn more about BlackRock, please visit Careers.BlackRock.com. We also encourage you to get to know us on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, X, and TikTok.

BlackRock is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity to all applicants and existing employees, and we evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, creed, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity/expression), sexual orientation, age, ancestry, physical or mental disability, marital status, political affiliation, religion, citizenship status, genetic information, veteran status, or any other basis protected under applicable federal, state, or local law. View the EEOC’s Know Your Rights poster and its supplement and the pay transparency statement.

BlackRock is committed to full inclusion of all qualified individuals and to providing reasonable accommodations or job modifications for individuals with disabilities. If reasonable accommodation/adjustments are needed throughout the employment process, please email Disability.Assistance@blackrock.com. All requests are treated in line with our privacy policy.

BlackRock will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records in a manner consistent with the requirements of the law, including any applicable fair chance law.