Commodities Research Associate

About Bridgewater

Bridgewater Associates is a premier asset management firm, focused on delivering unique insight and partnership for the most sophisticated global institutional investors. Our investment process is driven by a tireless pursuit to understand how the world’s markets and economies work — using cutting edge technology to validate and execute on timeless and universal investment principles.

 Founded in 1975, we are a community of independent thinkers who share a commitment for excellence. By fostering a culture of openness, transparency, and inclusion, we strive to unlock the most complex questions in investment strategy, management, and corporate culture.

Explore more information about Bridgewater on our website here.

Our Culture

Bridgewater’s unique success is the direct result of our unique way of being. We want an idea meritocracy in which meaningful work and meaningful relationships are pursued through radical truth and radical transparency. We require people to be extremely open, air disagreements, test each other’s logic, and view discovering mistakes and weaknesses as a good thing that leads to improvement and innovation. It is by continually striving together for the highest levels of truth and excellence that we create meaningful work and meaningful relationships.

Explore more information about Bridgewater’s culture on our website here.

About the Alpha Engine

Our core mission as an organization is to understand the fundamental drivers of markets and turn that understanding into high-quality portfolios and investment advice for our clients.  We do this in three critical ways: by being fundamental, systematic, and diversified. We seek to understand the economy in a fundamental way, uncovering the timeless and universal cause-and-effect linkages that drive global markets. That understanding is implemented systematically and converted into explicit rules that can be rigorously stress-tested. Finally, we create highly diversified portfolios that are not dependent on any one source of return and can survive a wide range of economic environments. 

About the Team

The Commodities Team helps Bridgewater make investments in the commodities markets based on a unique and differentiated understanding of Supply and Demand fundamentals, and helps Bridgewater understand how commodity prices, and changes in that pricing, affect broader macroeconomic factors like growth and inflation.  

About the Role

A successful Research Associate will be able to...

• Partner with our Investment Associates to research questions on commodities markets and commodity producing companies
• Manage and update key building blocks of understanding including data, models, and visualizations
• Monitor and raise observations about new or changing conditions in the world.
• Be a central hub of knowledge management for the team (over a short period of time, the Analyst should “own the numbers”)
• Be willing to expand a specialist knowledge in one market more broadly to all commodity markets that BW trades and follows
• Access data and ingest them in a systematic way (technical aptitude and experience in coding is a plus)

You will drive the following responsibilities:

• Help build, maintain, and consistently refine commodity balance sheets.
• Acquire and organize the production, consumption, and trade data needed to support those balance sheets.
• Monitor the activity and company reports of commodity producing companies.
• Contribute to to turning this understanding of commodities into trading systems.

You will be a click for the role if you:

• Are passionate about acquiring, monitoring, and organizing commodity data.
• Are interested in or enjoy supporting investment research and trading.
• Are analytical, highly logical, and structured in your thinking.
• Are both assertive and open minded, willing to assert your views while fully appreciating what you do not know.
• Hold a high degree of pride, personal responsibility, and ownership in the work that you own.
• Can consistently step back and improve your way of operating and are open to receiving and giving quality feedback.
• Thrive in a collaborative environment.

Interested in learning more about working at Bridgewater? Hear about the experiences of our employees here.

Minimum Qualifications:
We think the Research Associate with the best chance of succeeding will have the following qualifications:

• Strong work ethic and demonstrated ability to achieve results and drive projects to completion
• Strong attention to detail
• Ability to multi-task, prioritize, and organize time effectively in a fast-paced constantly changing environment
• 4-year degree from an accredited undergraduate institution
• Deep knowledge of the Supply and Demand fundamentals for at least one major commodity market (energy preferred, with breadth across oil, gas, coal, power preferred)
• Proficiency in building commodity balance sheets, including familiarity with the data and analytics landscape to support those balance sheets
• Have meaningful experience working for a specialist commodity research group, hedge fund or merchant
• Has meaningful 2-8 years of experience in the commodities space with a focus on energy

Physical Requirements

For most of our roles, Bridgewater offers remote work flexibility, with most employees required to work in our Westport office a minimum of two days (and in some cases three days) per week with the option to work offsite on other days.

Why Choose Bridgewater?

It takes all types to make Bridgewater great. We seek a diverse group of innovative thinkers and push them to engage in rigorous and thoughtful inquiry. We develop people through an honest examination of their abilities and performance, enabling personal growth and professional development. We strive to provide you opportunities that will challenge you and unlock your potential.

Compensation and Benefits

The expected annual base salary for this position is $150,000-$250,000. The total compensation package includes variable compensation in the form of a discretionary target bonus.

One of our core priorities at Bridgewater is to enable our employees to build a great life and career, and we believe our benefits are an important extension of that philosophy. As such, currently Bridgewater offers a competitive suite of benefits including:

• Health insurance with 100% premium covered and access to additional concierge medical services
• 401(k) plan with generous employer match
• Paid time off, including fully paid parental leave and a competitive PTO package
• Workplace flexibility and access to back up childcare
• Financial assistance for family building support, including adoption and egg freezing
• Workplace wellness, including on-site gyms, free meals and healthy snacks, and meditation rooms
• An engaged and active community that includes many company events, affinity networks, and extracurricular interest groups.
• For a full list of Bridgewater benefits, click here.

Bridgewater reserves the right to change its current benefits program at any time, in a manner that is consistent with applicable federal and state regulations.

This job description is not a contract and confers no contractual rights, privileges, or benefits on any applicant or potential applicant. Bridgewater has the right to change any and all terms of this job description, including, but not limited to, job responsibilities, qualifications and benefits. Nothing in this job description constitutes an offer or guarantee of employment. Please note that we do provide immigration sponsorship for this position.

Bridgewater Associates, LP is an Equal Opportunity Employer