Episode 69: Neal Pawar, AQR's CTO

Waters Wavelength

This week on the podcast, Anthony is once again joined by Dan (last time…at least for a while!) to welcome this week’s guest: Neal Pawar, AQR’s chief technology officer. AQR, which manages $187.6 billion as of March 31, 2017, is in the midst of a major buildout, upgrading different parts of it infrastructure, front to back, as the firm looks to continue its growth. To answer these enhancements, the need for talent has become increasingly important. Here are topics Pawar hit on during his time on the podcast: (1:45) Neal starts off looking at the fight for talent at colleges in the Northeast. (3:45) A look at how fintechs are disrupting the finance space. (6:20) What he looks for when hiring an engineer/programmer. (9:35) Programming languages they’re most interested in (Python, Pandas, Scala). (11:05) Ways to keep talented, experienced technologists. (13:45) The impact and growth of open-source applications. (14:55) The ethos of contributing back into open-source projects. (17:25) The future of open-source and how to develop a legal/compliance framework. (19:45) Why AQR has its engineers sitting side-by-side with the research department. (26:35) Lessons learned as AQR has grown in size. (28:00) To wrap things up, Neal, Dan and Anthony talk about soccer (Neal is a huge Liverpool supporter) and how they think the English Premier League will shape out (Anthony gives a stupid prediction about Manchester United).