Quantitative Analyst Club Football
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Job Summary
We have a fantastic new opportunity to join our team at Smartodds as a Club Football Quantitative Analyst.
Based in North London Smartodds provides in-depth research and analysis on sporting events around the world supported by world-class bespoke software platforms. We are proud of our collaborative and dynamic culture grounded in our core values of Boldness Open-mindedness Ownership and Togetherness. We are a supportive and collaborative team - our environment is open inclusive and focused on doing great work together.
About the role
You will have plenty of autonomy to execute your models from idea to code to validation to (hopefully) deployment. However this autonomyoperateswithin a structured framework: established coding patterns weekly check-ins high test coverage and strict reproducibility standards.
We highly value the personal development of our teammembersand you will therefore be able toallocatededicated time to improve your skills and gain the necessary experience that will enable you to progress into more senior roles.
While we are open to applications from anyone who meets theminimumrequirements we would be especially keen to hear from applicants with substantial research experience and a demonstrable passion for football analytics.
Key Responsibilities
What you can expect in return Our Benefits
From Day One
After 3 Months
If this sounds like the right fit we would love to hear from you. Please submit your CV and a cover letter explaining your interest in football analytics and highlighting relevant technical experience
Based in North London Smartodds provides in-depth research and analysis on sporting events around the world supported by world-class bespoke software platforms. We are proud of our collaborative and dynamic culture grounded in our core values of Boldness Open-mindedness Ownership and Togetherness. We are a supportive and collaborative team - our environment is open inclusive and focused on doing great work together.
About the role
As a member of the Quant Team you will join an exciting environment predicting outcomes of professional sports on behalf of our clients. We focus on football baseball basketball cricket tennis American football ice hockey horseracingand golf.
In this role you will join our newly created ClubFootballteam - a specialisedsub-teamwithin the Quant Team - developing statistical models exclusively for football. You will work closely with our partner clubs including Brentford FC and Mérida AD to improve performance throughtwocore areas:
- In-game strategy optimisation
- Ratings players for the purpose of recruitment and development
You will have plenty of autonomy to execute your models from idea to code to validation to (hopefully) deployment. However this autonomyoperateswithin a structured framework: established coding patterns weekly check-ins high test coverage and strict reproducibility standards.
We highly value the personal development of our teammembersand you will therefore be able toallocatededicated time to improve your skills and gain the necessary experience that will enable you to progress into more senior roles.
While we are open to applications from anyone who meets theminimumrequirements we would be especially keen to hear from applicants with substantial research experience and a demonstrable passion for football analytics.
Key Responsibilities
- Contribute toidentifyingpromising research directions; ensure research is carried out to the highest standard
- Build models for in-game tactical optimisation
- Develop player recruitment models based on client needs including player rating systems to quantify ability and performance
- Contribute to discussions and efforts toidentifyweaknesses and potential improvements in existing models across all sports
- Support club clients and internal stakeholders by developingmaintainingand supporting the mathematical libraries behind our range of tools and models and software that delivers model predictions into production
- Perform statistical analysis of datasets testing well-defined hypotheses and effectively communicating results to various stakeholders
Skills & Experience
Required
Technical
- EitherMSc in Statisticsor a related field (e.g. Data Science or Mathematics)with 3 years of relevant work experience (e.g. sports quantitative analyst for a club betting syndicate or bookmaker; or a PhD or equivalent in Statistics or a related field (e.g. Data Science Mathematics). Candidates from adjacent fields (Computer Science Engineering Finance) are welcome via either route provided they have solid applied statistics experience.
- Applied statistics:Solid understanding of GAMs GLMsand ideallystate-space models.
- Model diagnostics:Ability to evaluatepredictive model performance usingappropriate metrics quantify and communicate predictive uncertainty
- Strong programming skillsin a high-level language such as R (preferred) or Python. Must write production-quality code not just analysis scripts
- Clear writtencommunicationanddocumentation(including mathematical) can implement formulas from specs and code from formulas
- Demonstrated passion for working in sports modelling and sports analytics.:Evidencedby personal projects MSc project in a related area or statistical analyses of sports or teams
Working style
- Collaborative team playerwith a constructive approach to receiving and applying feedback
- Understands the importance of reproducible research andproperly testedcode
- Thorough and reliable with a verification mindset
- Ability to work autonomously while communicating proactively any blockers when needed
- Self-directed researcher who generates hypotheses worth testing and sees connections across domain
- Ability to work in the UK
Preferred
Domain:
- A strong interest in footballdemonstratedbypreviousattempts to model outcomes or analysedata
- Experience with player-level modelling
- Exposure to tracking data (physical metrics positional data)
- Good understanding of sports betting markets
Technical
- Comfortablein Rin unit testing
- Engineering discipline: unit testing config-driven pipelines clean git workflow. Willing to write tests document as you go and follow strict code style
- Uses AI coding assistants as a development accelerator not as a replacement for understanding. Writes precise instructions reviews AI-generated diffs critically and verifiesbehaviourbefore committing
- Experience with and/or knowledge of Bayesian models state space models filtering and smoothing computational statistics and approximate inference methods
- Experience with and/or knowledge of machine and statistical learning deep neural networks feature engineering reinforcement learning dynamicoptimisationandoptimalcontrol
- Experience with version control codereviewsand merge requests
- Experience with anyadditionalprogramming languages (such as PythonCor Julia)
- Familiarity with database technologies e.g. SQL MongoDB Redis Postgres
What you can expect in return Our Benefits
From Day One
- 30 days holiday (in addition to bank & public holidays)
- In-house chef*
- In-house masseuse*
- Team sporting events
- 25% discount on Brentford Football Club merchandise
- Cycle to work scheme
- Employee Assistance Programme
- Interest-free travel season ticket loan
- Offsite trips
After 3 Months
- Pension - Employer Contribution starting at 5.5% and employee starting at 2.5%
- Income protection 75% of salary (subject to terms & conditions)
- Dedicated time for professional development - conferences courses meet-ups networking events (at least one annually)
- Private Medical Insurance - including coverage of any excess payment
- Health Cash Plan via Medicash
- Life Assurance (4 x times earnings at time of death)
- Enhanced Company Sick Pay
- A discretionary annual bonus
- Increase in Employer Pension to 6% (to a minimum employee contribution of 3%)
- Enhanced Maternity Pay
- Enhanced Paternity Pay
- Increase in Employers Pension to 7% (to a minimum employee contribution of 3.5%)
If this sounds like the right fit we would love to hear from you. Please submit your CV and a cover letter explaining your interest in football analytics and highlighting relevant technical experience
Required Experience:
Manager
About Company
Smartodds specialise in providing in-depth quantitative and qualitative research and analysis on numbers sporting events all over the world.
