Research Scientist

About Vanguard

More than 45 years ago, John C. Bogle had a vision to start an investment company that did things differently. A company with no external shareholders. Where all the profits were invested back into the business and used to lower costs. Evidently, it was as bold as it was brilliant. To this day, Vanguard Group still has no external shareholders. That means no share prices to protect, and no profits to generate for outside owners. 

Today, Vanguard is one of the world’s largest investment management companies, serving more than 50 million investors worldwide. For more than 25 years Vanguard Australia has been supporting individual investors, financial advisers, and superannuation members to achieve their long-term financial goals.

Team & Opportunity

The Investment Strategy Group (ISG) is a global team that serves as Vanguard’s in-house think tank, with subject matter experts based in North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region. The team produces industry-leading research to help shape perspectives, plays a central role in developing Vanguard’s investment and advice methodology, and informs decisions about our investment offerings and strategies. As the Retirement Team within ISG, we aim to discover, share, and apply breakthrough insights about retirement savings and spending to drive better outcomes for pre-retirees and retirees.

We are seeking a Research Scientist to conduct research to improve retirement outcomes of Vanguard clients. Your work will generate thought leadership with applications to Vanguard business, media, public policy, and the academic research community. In this role, you’ll have the opportunity to work with senior business partners to inform Vanguard products and services as well as collaborate on surveys and experiments to study how people make decisions for retirement savings and generating income in retirement. 

Vanguard has incredible people and an inspiring mission: To take a stand for all investors, to treat them fairly, and to give them the best chance for investment success. If you are interested in making a positive impact on the retirement outcomes of households across the globe and have a passion for data, research, and working in teams, this is a great opportunity for you.

Core Responsibilities

• Conduct research that is scientifically rigorous, timely and impactful. Analyze a wide range of data such as administrative data, surveys, experiments, third-party and public datasets, distilling data into compelling visualizations and “killer charts” to tell differentiated stories.
• Help shape Vanguard’s house views on retirement savings and spending, Superannuation, household finance, financial advice, and public policy. Distill insights into high-impact written materials, including research memos, articles, blog posts, and white papers.
• Provide consultation services and as a subject matter expert on retirement. Prepare and deliver written materials, presentations, data analytics, and action recommendations as needed for senior management, clients, prospects, regulator inquiries and the media. Communicate complex analytical findings and implications to business partners in ways that inform Vanguard products and services.
• Serve as an ambassador for Vanguard by presenting your research to a wide range of audiences, from internal business partners to investors, advisors, and industry and academic conferences.
• Participate in group discussions designed to identify and debate investment and household finance topics and potential research projects. Develop recommendations on new research topics or methodology issues.
• Keep up with latest trends in behavioral economics, identifying new ways to amplify research rigor and impact.
• Proactively identify opportunities to enhance team research capabilities, such as new data sources or analytic techniques.

Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree in Economics, Finance, Psychology, Decision Sciences, or equivalent combination of training and experience required. Graduate degree preferred.
• Proven experience conducting, writing, and publishing scientific research on one or more of the following topics strongly preferred: retirement savings, retirement spending, Superannuation, behavioral economics, investor behavior, and household finance.
• Proven experience managing relationships with business stakeholders preferred. Ability to collaborate and communicate effectively with business stakeholders within and outside one’s own team, including setting priorities, project milestones and timelines, and make timely adjustments in an evolving environment.
• Experience collaborating in an international team environment desired.
• Experience working with individual-level data and at least one statistical/analytical software such as Python, R, Stata, or MATLAB required.
• Experience writing code (Python preferred) to access, transform, and prepare large scale data for analytics and modeling as well as experience with AWS tools (Athena and Sagemaker) preferred.
• Intellectual curiosity and a passion for generating and pursuing “big ideas” for “aha” insights through research.
• Team-first orientation and openness to learning new ideas, skills, and ways of working with a diverse set of teammates.
• Five years related work experience in research roles or equivalent educational experience.

Inclusion Statement

Vanguard’s continued commitment to diversity and inclusion is firmly rooted in our culture. Every decision we make to best serve our clients, crew (internally employees are referred to as crew), and communities is guided by one simple statement: “Do the right thing.”

We believe that a critical aspect of doing the right thing requires building diverse, inclusive, and highly effective teams of individuals who are as unique as the clients they serve. We empower our crew to contribute their distinct strengths to achieving Vanguard’s core purpose through our values.

When all crew members feel valued and included, our ability to collaborate and innovate is amplified, and we are united in delivering on Vanguard’s core purpose.

Our core purpose: To take a stand for all investors, to treat them fairly, and to give them the best chance for investment success.

How We Work

Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for the majority of our crew members, designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.