Culture and Purpose
Our purpose
We believe in revolutionizing the financial industry with collaboration and radical openness, empowering people and harnessing the creativity of a talented community. We do this by sharing beautiful open-source engineering with an organic community of quantitative finance professionals from around the world. We provide a place where people can be challenged, gain recognition for and profit from their efforts and connect with others interested in the same topics.
IN COLLABORATION, RADICAL OPENNESS AND COMMUNITY
Finance is one of the slowest industries to embrace open-source, married to legacy software that is too risky to change. It recreates technology stacks, introducing unnecessary risks, stagnation, and inefficiency. Thousands of firms do proprietary integrations to the same connectivity and data transformations.
We are pioneering a new era of open infrastructure for quantitative finance. Our community-focused, fully-open source model gives anyone cutting-edge quantitative research tools. We believe in building in public and sharing our work openly. We embrace new, innovative business models to make our work sustainable and accessible. Today, LEAN manages billions in assets for thousands of clients and is becoming the new standard to launch your new fund.
GENIUS IS DISTRIBUTED
We envision a meritocratic world where every bright and motivated individual has equal access to opportunities, regardless of location. We are driven to provide opportunities through the financial markets. Our online platform breaks down barriers and allows anyone with drive and determination to participate in algorithmic trading.
Today, thousands worldwide use QuantConnect to achieve their financial goals. We are proud to be a part of a movement that is creating a more equitable and accessible world where anyone can succeed based on their merits.
THE FUTURE OF INVESTMENT WILL BE AUTOMATED
As the growth of alternative data and artificial intelligence continues to raise the bar to develop quantitative investments, automation is vital to driving down investment costs and maximizing investor returns. Analyzing massive volumes of data requires computational approaches.
Our open-source platform empowers emerging firms to embrace cutting-edge quant technology and thrive in the digital age. With over 100 funds across 10+ asset classes and billions in assets under management, our technology platform is leading the way in shaping the future of investment. Join us as we create a world that is more accessible, equitable, and efficient for all.
OUR DRUMBEAT
QuantConnect is fighting some impossible odds and continues to thrive thanks to the grit, intelligence, and stamina of our team. We have values that we've tried to codify into statements below. If these resonate with you, you'll enjoy a creative and challenging work environment where you're given a lot of control and discretion to execute the mission of the company. We promise it will not be easy...
LIFE & WORK
We believe in revolutionizing the financial industry with collaboration and radical openness, empowering people and harnessing the creativity of a talented community. We do this by sharing beautiful open-source engineering with an organic community of quantitative finance professionals from around the world. We provide a place where people can be challenged, gain recognition for and profit from their efforts and connect with others interested in the same topics.
Do One Thing At A Time
Only ever do 1-2 things at a time and do them well. It can be tempting to start a new project when things get hard on the one you're working on, but see it through to completion, and think of creative ways to move the project along. Don't let a barrier become an excuse to start something new!
Blame Rarely Matters
There's no point wasting time or energy thinking who's to blame. We want people to feel comfortable accepting responsibility and working together as a team to fix the system. Focus on what we learned and avoid it in the future.
BALANCE
We have an infinite list of incredibly hard problems to do, all with seemingly critical deadlines. It can be hard to weigh that pressure with the time we have to fulfill it. QuantConnect is not quite a cushy big-tech yet, we're a scrappy, lean start-up fighting against almost impossible odds, but we still need to sleep. We ask people to give everything they can Monday to Friday 8-12 hours a day, focus and work expediently on the challenges presented, and in return, we commit to not intruding on the weekends and after-hours time. You'll be promised the space to completely switch off.
It's Not Done Until Its In Production
“Done” isn't pull-requested; “done” is in production being used by users with supporting documentation. For marketing, “done” is queued up on the blog/pr-platform with a scheduled release date or being read/watched by people. There's always a way to get things done if you put your head to it.
Plan for the Future, Execute in Steps
We always think 5 moves ahead, where we will be in 2 years, and execute that vision in small achievable steps to move us in the direction of the final goal. We don't need to ship the perfect product all at once, but we need to be headed in the right direction.
Do the Hard Things
Almost every challenge we face is incredibly hard. The level of technology and nuance in this sector keeps us on our toes daily. It can be tempting to find the shortcuts and make a fast solution to the challenge at the cost of long-term maintenance. Take the time, do the job right and solve it the “right” way. Do it first.
Every Message Delivers Value
Every time we communicate with our community we deliver value in our message to our readers. We don't engage in pure promotional or one-sided messaging. Readers should come away having learned something new or tangibly benefited.
Design in Teams / No Lone Rangers
We are a team in all senses. We share the blame, responsibility, and credit. When designing something loop in a team member and volley ideas back and forth, the end result will be a much more mature and well-thought-out concept.
Our Mission
LINUX OF FINANCE
The core reason we built QuantConnect is simple; we serve a community of self-directed investors. We empower creators to build and trailblaze the open-quant wild west. We pioneer when everyone thinks it is crazy. We're an innovation engine, providing investors access to cutting-edge quantitative trading.
We're executing a 7-year plan to make QuantConnect and LEAN the ubiquitous infrastructure for quant investment. Every day we grind to solve and open-source critical modeling and integration challenges of quant investing; to help millions of people and thousands of emerging funds worldwide. Our infrastructure makes quantitative investments safer, operations more efficient, and teams more productive.
We aspire to be the Linux of finance, but what does that mean? QuantConnect and LEAN are an operating system for capital market trading, able to run a global ecosystem of financial applications, including indexes, ETFs, hedge funds, and fintech.
Like the Linux operating system, we perform most of our work invisibly - connecting datasets, compute resources, and brokerage destinations into a single experience. Complex financial modeling is a delicate problem; we should solve these challenges once and open-source the solutions, allowing millions of people to leverage them more efficiently and reduce the chance of errors. Each day millions of engineers rewrite the same data, brokerage, and exchange connectivity that are ultimately just plumbing. We aim to invert common patterns and encourage vendors to build and open-source their connectivity to save developers millions of hours. Today, most vendors create a REST API or an SDK; we believe tomorrow they'll stop once they've integrated with LEAN.
By 2030 we see LEAN and QuantConnect as an infinity cloud quant engine, with every data source, every asset class, and brokerage integration completed. LEAN will be taught in every university and will power thousands of funds. It won't just be 10x better than alternatives but 10,000x better. Who still considers writing an operating system? Funds will interview in LEAN and accept LEAN algorithms for job applications to reduce enormous training and recruiting costs. Fund infrastructure will be a mix of open-source and closed-source modifications, with everyone running a LEAN V8 engine under the hood. Individuals will have access to the same robust, low-cost infrastructure.
HOW DO WE GET THERE?
To create this open-finance vision, we need to scale the execution of our four pillars: education, datasets, licensable code, and brokerage integrations.
Education
Create comprehensive, interactive, and free training programs and introduce quant funds to LEAN-educated graduates. Support universities and clubs with educational material for use in their classrooms, and free QuantConnect infrastructure.
Datasets
Scale dataset marketplace from 50 datasets to 2,000+, eliminating ETL (extract transform load) to save engineers millions of hours of meaningless work. Enable quants to onboard and test new datasets with a single line of code.
Low-Code Builders
Open QuantConnect to non-coders such as sophisticated traders and portfolio managers through a low code interface. Making it easier to assemble high-quality quant components, and increasing our audience of consumers 10x.
Trading Integrations
Expand to 400 brokerage integrations to cover every major brokerage and exchange globally, including international markets. Expand LEAN modeling to support all major asset classes, with fee, slippage, and fill modeling.
The Future of Finance
The future of finance will be markedly different from the current status quo. We're excited to see the legacy we'll leave the world.
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