What are the responsibilities and job description for the Associate Investment Research Analyst position at Harrison Gray Search & Consulting?
Harrison Gray Search has partnered with a prominent Boston-based multi-family office and investment advisory firm.
Job Description
The Associate role reports to the Managing Director of Investment Research and works in conjunction with the Portfolio Advisory and Family Office Management groups. The successful candidate will have some knowledge of financial markets and third-party managers, including traditional and alternative investments, as well as programming and database management experience.
Primary Responsibilities
The responsibilities are equally split, focusing on core investment research and crucial engineering/automation tasks.
Investment Research (~50%)
- Maintain, update, and QA the research and manager databases, ensuring completeness, timeliness, and integrity of documents and data.
- Source, screen, and monitor third-party managers/funds across traditional and alternative strategies (SMAs, mutual funds, ETFs, LPs).
- Support thematic research aligned with the firm's macro views; draft concise research notes and contribute to Due Diligence Memoranda.
- Participate in weekly research meetings; assist Portfolio Advisory with portfolio analysis and client-facing materials.
Engineering, Data & Automation (~50%)
- Build research tools, including scripts, notebooks, and lightweight apps that automate data intake, validation, transformation, and reporting.
- Create reusable models and analytics, including screeners, factor/peer comps, performance/attribution and risk dashboards with clear documentation and an easy UI.
- Systematize processes and codify recurring workflows (intake to diligence to approval to monitoring) and reduce manual steps via automation.
- Produce dashboards and templates for investment memos, DD checklists, KPI trackers, and monitoring reports.
Qualifications
- 1-3 years of experience in investment research, manager due diligence, data analytics, or a related role (buy-side, allocator, consultant, data/research engineering).
- Strong coding ability in Python, or similar, and SQL or comparable database management skills.
- Proficiency in Excel (advanced formulas; Power Query or VBA a plus).
- Experience building simple tools/dashboards (e.g., Power BI/Tableau or Python-based).
- Familiarity with APIs, CSV/XLSX/PDF ingestion, and basic data QA/validation practices.
- Solid grasp of investment concepts (returns, risk, factor exposures, benchmark construction, fees, share classes, liquidity terms), or willingness to take the time to learn.
- Detail-orientation, strong organization, and the ability to own projects end-to-end.
- Ability to write and present technical topics in a clear and effective manner.
- Exposure to alternative investments and investment diligence a plus, but not required.
- Experience with Bloomberg, FactSet, or CapIQ a plus, but not required.
- Basic systems architecture and cloud literacy a plus, but not required.
- Progress or interest toward CFA or CAIA.