Employee Spotlight: Abraham Angel, Product Analyst, New York

Our employee spotlight series highlights our people spanning many different roles, teams and geographies—each with a unique perspective to share, and each essential to our journey. Abraham joined us fresh out of college in our Analyst program as a Product Analyst, where he's had the ability to rotate between a number of teams and gain exposure to different product areas and protocols, before landing on the Municipal Bonds (Munis) team. Learn more about what his MarketAxess experience has been like, and the impact he's been able to make in a short period of time. 

---

What is your role at MarketAxess?

I'm a Product Analyst for the Municipal Bonds (Munis) team. I was part of the Analyst rotational program for product after I graduated from college. I've been able to rotate between a few different teams, and now I’ve landed at Munis and this is my permanent placement. But in the simplest terms, I’d say I help build software products and solutions for a fixed income trading platform, if people ask and they're unfamiliar with what we do.  

What inspired you to pursue your career path?

I went to USC in California and studied economics and math. Little by little, I started getting into more of the innovation and entrepreneurship routes, and I saw that product management could be a good path to pursue when it came to product innovation and building out and scaling products. At USC, I had the ability to join specific clubs that dealt with product management, including one called Lavalab, which helped me understand product management as a position – what it’s like to work with engineers, product designers, and build out a product that would be useful to the end user – and I found that I really enjoyed it. 

Why did you join us?

When I started looking for jobs, I came across this product management position online on Built In. I then discovered it was within the realm of fintech, plus economics and math, which bridges my interests from college. But I didn't know much about MarketAxess or what they did, so I researched and read a little bit more about the company, and I became more and more excited about the opportunity. The recruiting team was great to work with, and it made the whole interview process extremely fast and efficient. 

I am a strong believer in collaboration and being able to be curious. When I interviewed, MarketAxess seemed to check those boxes. They were looking for someone that is willing to ask questions and not be ashamed about that. I was also really attracted to startup mentality of MarketAxess, but in a bigger corporation with more structure and stability. 

What teams do you collaborate with? 

We follow the agile methodology, so I’m a part of a Scrum team, which is comprised of developers, QA and product people, plus a scrum master. We’re building out specific features for clients within a PI (Program Increment), which is a range of three months. So there’s that type of collaboration, and then there’s collaboration within the product team, which is really important, because you’re the subject matter expert about a specific feature, and you have to understand how that feature can impact other functionalities within the platform.  

Something I’m getting exposed to more and more in the Munis team is collaboration with Sales. Sales is really on the front lines with the client, and the client usually has a lot of requests about what needs to be built and what they want to see on the platform. So there's a lot of collaboration around what the next features are that can be built not only in the next PI, but then in the next year or two years.  

What’s been your biggest accomplishment since starting your journey with MarketAxess?  

I wouldn’t say it’s a specific thing, but more along the lines of being more accountable for the work I’m doing and feeling comfortable. I’m being given more responsibility, and I've had the opportunity to apply my knowledge to what we’re building. I have less than one year of experience and I now have the confidence to give direction to developers and QA leads that have over 10 years of experience in the industry. At first it was a bit intimidating being able to say "hey, I think you should prioritize this part rather than that part" because why would someone listen to a 22 year old that has nine months of experience in the job? At the end of the day, something that I've learned is that we’re working towards the same goal, but our jobs are very different. So that helps me reassure myself that what I'm learning can be valuable to what we're building, not only now, but in the future as well.  

One of the really great things about the Analyst program within product is that you rotate between multiple protocols and products. So whenever we're having a conversation right now within my team about a specific workflow that we want to incorporate into Munis, but it's something that I've seen during my time on the EM (Emerging Markets) or Portfolio Trading team, I feel like I have that knowledge that I can transfer over. It makes me feel empowered to contribute. 

What’s your “why work at MarketAxess” pitch? 

I really enjoy the people that I work with. I get really excited about going to the office and not just staying at home. I love how collaborative it is and especially the open door policy. You can honestly talk to anyone at whatever time. Whenever I have a question, I can just reach out to, for example, Robert Allison, who is our Head of Trading Solutions, and he'll have a conversation with me as if we're equal. Many other companies there is a strict hierarchy, but here, you can reach out to anyone and everyone is always happy to help. 

MarketAxess also invests in their employees. For me specifically, beyond the great benefits that we have, within product management, we've had agile training certifications had product management certifications. There's always this sense of the company wanting you to grow. 

How does the work that you do in your role help to Take Us There? 

Within my role, I’ve needed to gain expertise about a specific product and then try to understand how to build out a product that helps us drive not only more sales, but also more attention to the platform. You have to be very attentive to detail in what we build and how we want to market out how our solutions are helping to electronify the bond market. I was surprised to learn when I joined that 70% to 80% of the bond market is still trading via phone, and the fact that I'm able to collaborate within a team to build out products that can help drive that market share up is exciting to me. It feels like I am working to innovate a very old industry. 

What have the highlights of the Analyst program been for you? 

I really enjoyed the community service event. It was great to step away from work and be with the analyst class and do something fun while giving back to the community. We were broken up into teams and went to a food bank, and there was an activity where we were given a budget and did a supermarket sweep. It was fun running around this tiny little bodega trying to find all these items we needed to donate to a senior citizens center. 

I was really bummed that I wasn't able to make it to the cooking event at the Institute of Culinary Education, since cooking is one of my side passions. 

What do you like to cook?

I can't say one thing in particular, but I think for me it's expanding my cooking abilities and trying many different things. In my last semester of college, I actually opened up a restaurant with a friend in their bedroom. We would design a specific prefix menu around an artist because my friend liked art and we wanted to create a fine dining experience that incorporated the perspective of a specific artist. For example, one day we did Jackson Pollock and we had a couple of dishes, but the whole idea of the plating had to do with just splattering everything about. This was more of a passion project in which we donated all the proceeds to charity. 

Want to work with Abraham at MarketAxess? Explore our available opportunities here.