Model Technical Risk Validator/Analyst

Your opportunity

At Schwab, you are empowered to make an impact on your career. Here, innovative thought meets creative problem solving, helping us “challenge the status quo” and transform the finance industry together. 

Charles Schwab’s Model Risk Oversight (MRO) team oversees the use and risk of model use at the firm. MRO is responsible for performing validations of the conceptual soundness and technical implementation of models to ensure their reliability.

The Technical Validator will review the technical implementation of model systems, applications, and platforms, and collaborate with lead validators to determine the technical soundness of model implementation. Departments across the firm use models. MRO acts as the gatekeeper to ensure compliance with standards and best practice prior to production use. The candidate should be a self-starter who excels at effectively challenging the technical implementation of applications developed by others and determining improvements.

In this role, you’ll have the opportunity to:

• Partner with model developers and implementation teams to establish proper controls and determining best practice for model implementation.
• Author professional reports that deliver results for an in-depth validation.
• Coordinate with other teams that are assisting in the validation report.
• Challenge model implementation within the following areas:
• Implementation design including platform and architecture/infrastructure.
• Model use within the development, testing, and production environments.
• Data management and related controls for handling, moving, transforming, consuming, producing, and protecting data.
• Change management concepts across versioning, source code controls, and deployment methodologies.
• Comprehensive testing plans including regression tests, unit tests, feature tests, and other implementation testing practices to ensure proper development and implementation of models.
• Access management regarding unauthorized access to model and data.

What you have

Required Qualifications:

• The equivalent work experience or master’s degree in information systems, software engineering, or computer science.

Preferred Qualifications:

• 2+ years' experience in software development and implementation, software engineering, full stack application development, IT system architecture, or other IT related areas.
• 2+ years’ experience with testing, including knowledge of best practices for unit tests, regression tests, feature tests, and other types of implementation testing.
• An initiative-taker, able to work independently and within a team environment, with a proven ability to review and challenge complex processes or software implementation.
• High attention to detail, sharp critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent writing skills with proven ability to prepare and create executive-level reports and documentation.
• Excellent communications skills with the ability to present and describe issues and solutions to their team, model owners, developers, and executive staff.
• Experience developing, implementing, or executing quantitative or predictive models using statistical programming languages (e.g., Python, R, Matlab).
• Experience with object-oriented programming languages (e.g., C#, Java).
• Experience with SDLC concepts and related systems (e.g., JIRA, Bamboo, Zephyr, Bitbucket, Remedy).