Talking Tuesdays with Fancy Quant

Hosted by Dimitri Bianco

Technology Education ScienceExplicit

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Episodes

136

Latest episode

Jul 2026

Language

EN-US

About the show

The Talking Tuesdays Podcast is all about quantitative topics but mainly focused around quantitative finance, data science, machine learning, career development, and technical topics. Join me for some insight from a risk management professional on how the industry works and how to break in!

Listen to episodes

60 recent

July 14, 2026Episode 51 hr 1 min

Ex-BofA Quant Builds AI Margin Platform from Scratch

Send us Fan Mail What happens when a former Bank of America quantitative engineer combines deep expertise in finance with cutting-edge AI? In this episode of Talking Tuesday, I sit down with Katelyn Schoenberger, founder of MarginLens, to discuss how she built an AI-powered margin intelligence platform from the ground up. We dive into her journey from computer science student to quant developer at JP Morgan and Bank of America, and ultimately to becoming a solo founder building a fintech startup. Along the way, we explore AI-assisted software development, startup life, quantitative finance careers, and why understanding margin is far more important than most people realize. Whether you're interested in quantitative finance, AI engineering, fintech startups, or breaking into Wall Street, this conversation is packed with practical insights and career advice. In this episode: Building an AI-powered margin platform as a solo founder Life as a quantitative engineer at Bank of America Margin explained: what it is and why it matters How AI is changing financial infrastructure Startup lessons from building a production-ready fintech product Claude Code, AI-assisted software engineering, and modern development workflows Breaking into quantitative finance without attending a target school JP Morgan vs. Bank of America career experiences Software engineering vs. quantitative finance careers Why documentation, architecture, and explainability still matter in the AI era Career advice for students and aspiring quants Women in STEM and navigating technical careers The importance of creativity, hobbies, and lifelong learning If you're considering a career in quantitative finance, software engineering, machine learning, or fintech, this interview offers an honest look at what it takes to succeed—and how AI is reshaping the industry. 👍 If you enjoyed this interview, please Like, Subscribe, and leave a comment with your thoughts or questions for a future episode. #QuantFinance #ArtificialIntelligence #Fintech #MachineLearning #SoftwareEngineering #BankOfAmerica #JPMorgan #ClaudeCode #Startup #WallStreet #RiskManagement #Trading #DataScience #CareerAdvice #FancyQuant Join the quant community in Dallas, Texas April 10th at SMU! Quaint Quant Conference - 2026 Learn and network from a close knit quant community! Support the show

March 31, 2026Episode 440 min

Banking's Hype History and Balancing Reality

Send us Fan Mail A long form discussion on the history of programming for quants at the banks from SAS to Python and the rise of machine learning. While the hype of machine learning changed some of the banking modeling practices the industry kept their head straight as regulators closely watched. Now in 2026 with the AI hype wave and regulators being less strict, the banks seem lost as many are calling to replace SR 11-7 with general frameworks to reduce risk management and drive more efficiency. While this sounds good from a profit perspective, it is throwing out common definitions of models in a chase for non-sense. Balancing the hype and trends also has been hard with the YouTube channel. It is much easier to sell snake oil as everyone wants a magical cure to profit, high salaries, minimal work, programming, math, and stats without putting in any work. I have done fairly well at sticking to creating real quant educational materials and industry perspectives even when passing up easy growth opportunities. Ten years later and we passed 100k subscribers without selling out. Join the quant community in Dallas, Texas April 10th at SMU! Quaint Quant Conference - 2026 Learn and network from a close knit quant community! Support the show

March 3, 2026Episode 355 min

Control Systems and Electrical Engineering to AI in Finance

Send us Fan Mail Didier Lopes studied control systems and electrical engineering in Europe before moving to the United States to build OpenBB, a next-generation financial research workspace. Frustrated by how fragmented data, analysis, and decision-making tools were across finance and other industries, Didier set out to create a professional-grade platform where teams can bring their data, analytics, and AI into one unified environment. Before founding OpenBB, he worked on cutting-edge technologies ranging from self-driving cars to wearable fitness devices, following a deep curiosity for complex systems and real-world impact. In this episode, we talk about building in the age of AI, navigating life as a founder in the U.S., and the nuances of time-series modeling in financial markets. OpenBB Examples: https://openbb.co/solutions OpenBB Product: https://pro.openbb.co/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/didier-lopes/ High Growth Handbook (book recommendation - affiliate link): https://amzn.to/4aAvbfS Join the quant community in Dallas, Texas April 10th at SMU! Quaint Quant Conference - 2026 Learn and network from a close knit quant community! Support the show

February 24, 202654 min

Systematic Fixed Income with Jeffrey Rosenberg

Send us Fan Mail Jeffrey Rosenberg, CFA, Managing Director is a senior portfolio manager within BlackRock Systematic. He leads active and factor investments for mutual funds, institutional portfolios and ETFs within BlackRock’s Systematic Fixed Income (“SFI”) portfolio management team. In this role he serves as a member of the SFI Investment and Executive Committees and as a senior portfolio manager for several investment products including the BlackRock Systematic Multi-Strategy Fund (BIMBX), the iShares Systematic Alternatives Active ETF (IALT) and the iShares Managed Futures Active ETF (ISMF). We talked about systematic portfolio managers compared to discretionary portfolio managers, his career and education from finance and math into computational finance at Carnegie Mellon, the changes in the market from banks to hedge funds being driven by the global financial crisis, and some book recommendations. BlackRock Systematic Investing: https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/investment-ideas/systematic-investing BlackRock’s Q1 Fixed Income Outlook: https://www.blackrock.com/us/financial-professionals/literature/market-commentary/fixed-income-market-outlook.pdf Jeffrey Roseberg: https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/biographies/jeffrey-rosenberg Join the quant community in Dallas, Texas April 10th at SMU! Quaint Quant Conference - 2026 Learn and network from a close knit quant community! Support the show

February 17, 2026Episode 21 hr 4 min

Poet to Wall Street Engineer - Michael Jordan Pilgreen

Send us Fan Mail Michael Jordan Pilgreen was a poetry and art major but as covid hit and the commercial art industry changed he looked for a new path. He considered financial planning but ended up learning finance and technology to become an engineer on Wall Street in the fixed income market. Now he is a co-founder of Enduring Markets which is a capital markets publication covering a range of interesting topics. I got the privilege to advise Michael about 5 years ago during his journey on what quant finance was. Today I got to learn more in depth about fixed income from him. Michael Jordan Pilgreen https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-jordan-pilgreen-7a3099108/details/experience/ Enduring Markets https://www.enduringmarkets.org Join the quant community in Dallas, Texas April 10th at SMU! Quaint Quant Conference - 2026 Learn and network from a close knit quant community! Support the show

January 13, 2026Episode 159 min

What is Quantum Research?

Send us Fan Mail Interested in what quantum computing is? Ramis Movassagh explains the basics of quantum, some applications to finance, why it is a hard problem to solve, and ways to learn more about it. Ramis is an applied mathematician and a theoretical physicist who researches quantum computation and information theory, and quantum cryptography and complexity. He does an amazing job at laying out some of the basic ideas of quantum mechanics. Ramis' Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramis-movassagh-33465717/ Website and Blog: https://ramismovassagh.wordpress.com/ https://ramismovassagh.wordpress.com/blog X handle: @Ramis_Movassagh Quantum supremacy paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-023-02131-2 PDF for those behind the paywall: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-023-02131-2.epdf?sharing_token=oYgyql7M-nUPNwLJ4F2Q_tRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0M5gli-apQIlZ1xThgS5KRp3t28rkad24bSeQ-gRMhmOaNP232U_FZZQjPrseDCTdXIRryTWL339snJllwZAjuD5PMkLKij96GMA_OniVnTz5JjaARH0qW5OV-AKwZr4VI%3D Press coverage: https://phys.org/news/2023-09-difficulty-simulating-random-quantum-circuits.html https://communities.springernature.com/posts/the-quest-for-quantum-primacy Quantum Merkle Trees: https://quantum-journal.org/papers/q-2024-06-18-1380/ IBM's "Basics of Quantum Information": https://quantum.cloud.ibm.com/learning/en/courses/basics-of-quantum-information John Preskill from CalTech: https://www.preskill.caltech.edu/ MIT "Quantum Computing": https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-435j-quantum-computation-fall-2003/ Join the quant community in Dallas, Texas April 10th at SMU! Quaint Quant Conference - 2026 Learn and network from a close knit quant community! Support the show

December 23, 2025Episode 1249 min

Sabr Research with Cheikh Fall

Send us Fan Mail Diving into pure math, quantitative finance, and solving business problems with AI and LLMs. Cheikh Fall is a co-founder of Sabr Research and an MIT grad who is looking to solve many business problems with the advancements in AI. We discuss potential issues with AI, what hedge funds look for in quant researchers, and how to prepare as a student for AI. Cheik Fall https://www.linkedin.com/in/fallcheik/ Sabr Research https://www.linkedin.com/company/sabr-research/ Dimitri Bianco https://www.linkedin.com/in/dimitri-bianco/ My favorite coffee which supports the creation of these podcasts https://volcanicacoffee.pxf.io/yq6Qj3 Join the quant community in Dallas, Texas April 10th at SMU! Quaint Quant Conference - 2026 Learn and network from a close knit quant community! Support the show

October 28, 2025Episode 111 hr 7 min

AI in Hedge Funds and Asset Management - Michael Watson

Send us Fan Mail I had a blast taking to Michael Watson who is the founder and CEO of Hedgineer. "AI is the future. But not everyone is prepared for it. To effectively integrate AI into a company, it needs an organized, thorough, and secure inventory of data. Without one, every AI implementation remains incomplete because it only has access to a subset of the relevant information it needs. Most hedge funds are built on disjointed networks of research portals, order management systems, and datasets. The ones that don't consolidate them will run the risk of falling behind the AI curve." Michael's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldavidwatson/ Hedgineer: https://www.hedgineer.io/ https://www.youtube.com/@hedgineer https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-hedgineer-podcast/id1674929284 https://open.spotify.com/show/0Aq6pxdUONA4aJPntsvqf2 https://www.linkedin.com/company/hedgineer-io/ Video Version: https://youtu.be/2hyfMMl1pGg Join the quant community in Dallas, Texas April 10th at SMU! Quaint Quant Conference - 2026 Learn and network from a close knit quant community! Support the show

October 21, 2025Episode 101 hr 2 min

Physicist to Quant and AI - Igor Halperin

Send us Fan Mail Learn about financial AI expert, Igor Halperin's journey from the Soviet Union to physics and finally quantitative finance in the US. A great discussion on why many physists choose to go into quantitative finance, the positive and negative impacts of LLMs, and some perspectives on careers. Igor Halperin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/igor-halperin-092175a/ YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/J7O6Scnc5NA Igor's Textbook: https://amzn.to/42IGAGh Join the quant community in Dallas, Texas April 10th at SMU! Quaint Quant Conference - 2026 Learn and network from a close knit quant community! Support the show

September 23, 2025Episode 91 hr 22 min

Alpha Engineer - Jeff Ryan

Send us Fan Mail Jeff Ryan is an alpha engineer with an unconventional background. He is also the co-founder of QUANTkiosk and loves solving problems. Some great discussion on programming languages, structuring data, the quant community, and why R programming is so useful. YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/U0qf-sRzQZk QUANTkiosk http://www.quantkiosk.com Jeff Ryan https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreyaryan/ Join the quant community in Dallas, Texas April 10th at SMU! Quaint Quant Conference - 2026 Learn and network from a close knit quant community! Support the show