Head of Market Risk

Job Description

About Polymarket
Polymarket is the world's largest prediction market platform. We enable individuals to express views on real-world events by trading on outcomes across politics, economics, sports, culture, and current affairs. Built as a peer-to-peer marketplace with no centralized "house," Polymarket aggregates diverse opinions into transparent, market-based probabilities that reflect collective expectations about the future.
We're growing fast - both in terms of volume ($21B traded in 2025) and adoption as an alternative news source. Our ambition is to become a ubiquitous beacon of truth in global media and we need your help adding fuel to the fire.

About the Role
Polymarket is looking for a Head of Market Risk to own the firm's market risk framework across both our Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) and Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO). This is a senior, hands-on leadership role responsible for identifying, measuring, monitoring, and controlling the market risks arising from cleared member portfolios and the risks the clearinghouse mutualizes as a central counterparty.
The ideal candidate has direct trading and risk management experience and understands how markets behave under stress - how liquidity evaporates, how volatility regimes shift, and how macro events move prices. That intuition must be paired with the rigor to set, calibrate, and defend the margin and risk parameters that keep the FCM and clearinghouse safe, and the communication skills to translate complex exposures into clear, decision-ready terms for the Risk Committee, Board, regulators, and clearing members.

What You'll Do

- Own the end-to-end market risk framework for the FCM and DCO, including risk appetite, limit structures, escalation triggers, and the policies that govern them

- Serve as the primary market-risk voice to the Risk Committee and Board, presenting exposures, limit utilization, stress results, and emerging risks in clear, actionable terms

- Ensure the framework meets CFTC requirements and DCO Core Principles and stands up to regulatory and internal-audit scrutiny

- Partner with the CRO/CEO on risk appetite calibration and ensure alignment between the FCM's proprietary and client-facing risk and the DCO's mutualized risk

- Set, monitor, and tune initial and variation margin, add-ons, and concentration and liquidity charges across cleared products, calibrating parameters to prevailing and anticipated market conditions

- Work closely with quants and developers to build an end-to-end risk platform implementing the DCO's risk methodology

- React decisively to changing market dynamics - widening spreads, volatility spikes, gap risk around scheduled and unscheduled events - by adjusting parameters ahead of the risk

- Oversee daily monitoring of house and member exposures, margin coverage, and limit breaches, and lead the response to intraday moves

- Design and run stress tests, reverse stress tests, and scenario analysis - including extreme-but-plausible macro shocks - and size the guaranty/default fund and other financial resources accordingly

- Contribute market-risk expertise to default management, including auction and liquidation of a defaulting member's portfolio, and participate in fire-drills and default simulations

- Monitor macro and market events - central-bank decisions, economic releases, geopolitical shocks, expiries - and assess their impact on cleared portfolios and the FCM

- Build and lead the market risk team, setting standards for analytics, monitoring, and reporting

- Work closely with Clearing Operations, Membership, Compliance, Finance/Treasury, and Technology to embed risk controls into daily operations and system design

- Engage directly with clearing members and large clients on their risk profile, margin requirements, and exposure concentrations

What We're Looking For

- Prior trading experience - direct experience trading and managing risk on a desk (derivatives, futures, options, fixed income, commodities, or equities), with an intuitive grasp of market microstructure, liquidity, and volatility dynamics

- Expertise in managing risk at a DCO, FCM, or trading desk

- Hands-on experience calibrating market-risk methodologies: VaR, Expected Shortfall, stress testing, scenario analysis, SPAN, or portfolio margining

- Working knowledge of the regulatory landscape for FCMs and DCOs - CFTC regulations, DCO Core Principles, customer fund segregation, and related requirements

- Exceptional communication skills - proven ability to present exposures, model results, and risk trade-offs clearly and credibly to a Risk Committee, Board, and regulators

- 10+ years in market or clearing risk, trading, or a closely related discipline, including time in a leadership or senior individual-contributor capacity

- Bachelor's degree in a quantitative field (finance, economics, mathematics, engineering, or similar)

- (Plus) Experience at a clearinghouse (CCP), FCM, IB, or similar environment

- (Plus) Advanced degree (MBA, MFE, or graduate degree in a quantitative discipline) and/or FRM/CFA/PRM

- (Plus) Direct participation in a default-management event or industry default simulation

Benefits

- Competitive salary & equity

- Unlimited PTO

- Full Health, Vision, & Dental coverage

- 401k match

- Hardware setup: new MacBook Pro, big display, & accessories