Head of Quant Strategy — Crypto Arbitrage

About the Role

Zento is building an institutional-grade crypto arbitrage and cross-exchange trading platform. The infrastructure, engineering team, and data foundations are in place — what we need now is someone who has actually done this before. You'll design the strategies, own the risk framework, sign off on production readiness, and stay accountable for live PnL on the strategies in your charter. Real authority, real capital, real ownership.

What You'll Do

• Own the funding arbitrage program across perp-spot basis, perp-perp basis, cross-exchange spot arb, and funding rate term structure — deciding which strategies run, at what capital scale, and in what sequence
• Guide the engineering team through turning strategies into production code and own sign-off on production readiness for every component: scanner, signal generator, execution layer, hedging logic, position reconciler, and risk engine
• Design and operate the full risk framework: position sizing, exposure caps, leverage limits, liquidation buffers, drawdown rules, kill switches, and circuit breakers — capital protection is non-negotiable
• Plan how capital is held, moved, and rebalanced across venues; define the treasury operating model covering stablecoins, redemption rails, counterparties, and per-exchange reserve buffers
• Set execution quality standards — latency, slippage, and fill quality — and work with the trading systems team to establish realistic engineering targets rather than aspirational ones
• Lead and grow the quant team: set research direction, run code and notebook reviews, mentor engineers, and build a culture that is rigorous, reproducible, and skeptical of its own results
• Own daily and weekly PnL attribution, diagnose when realized PnL diverges from models, detect strategy decay early, and be willing to retire strategies that no longer earn their capital
• Maintain a live view of counterparty risk per venue and translate exchange solvency signals, withdrawal frictions, and regulatory shifts into hard exposure limits
• Define the multi-quarter roadmap: which venues to integrate next, which strategies to research, at what capital tier each strategy makes sense, and where not to scale further

What We're Looking For

• 7+ years in quantitative trading, systematic trading, or quant research roles
• 3+ years specifically in crypto markets, with hands-on production experience running funding arbitrage, basis trading, or related delta-neutral strategies at meaningful capital scale
• Demonstrable track record of running profitable strategies in production — able to speak credibly about strategy design, drawdowns, regime handling, and lessons learned (within NDA constraints)
• Deep knowledge of perpetual futures mechanics across multiple venues — funding rate calculation, mark vs index pricing, liquidation mechanics, settlement cadences, and venue-specific quirks
• Strong working knowledge of major CEX venues: Binance, Bybit, OKX, Deribit, Hyperliquid, Coinbase
• Quantitative foundations: probability, statistics, time series analysis, optimization, and applied econometrics
• Strong Python — able to read, review, and contribute to research code
• Deep understanding of trading costs end-to-end: fee tiers, slippage modeling, capital cost, withdrawal latency, and operational frictions
• Risk management grounded in real experience — you've lived through meaningful drawdowns and learned the right lessons
• Leadership track record — has led at least a small team, or been the senior individual others looked to for strategy direction

Nice to Have

• Prior leadership at a crypto hedge fund, market maker, prop trading firm, or HFT desk
• Traditional finance quant background (stat arb, fixed income, futures, FX) before moving to crypto
• Experience designing trading risk frameworks from scratch, including kill-switch logic and drawdown governance
• Hands-on experience with DEX perpetuals, AMM mechanics, on-chain execution, and smart contract risk assessment
• Direct relationships across the crypto trading and exchange ecosystem
• Published research, conference talks, or open-source contributions in quant finance or crypto market microstructure
• Experience operating in regulated environments (UAE VARA, BVI, BMA, or similar)
• Familiarity with portfolio margin, cross-margin mechanics, and capital efficiency optimization across venues