About the role
About the Company
Sei Labs is a unicorn startup based in NYC building Sei, the fastest EVM blockchain in the world designed for trading. We're building a decentralized Wall Street. We're a lean, remote-first team that ships fast, takes full ownership of outcomes and builds from first principles.
Sei Labs is incubating a new US regulated exchange from zero to one. You'd be the first hire in your function, with the speed and ownership of a startup and the backing of an established company and an S-tier team (Robinhood, Coinbase, Google, etc.)
About the role
As our initial Risk Manager, you will be the day-to-day lead of the FCM's independent Risk Management Unit and will administer, maintain and enhance its Risk Management Program. You will establish and monitor risk limits, assess customer and firm exposures, conduct stress testing, oversee margin and liquidation risk, and escalate material risk matters directly to senior management. You will work closely with Finance, Operations, Technology and Compliance while maintaining the independence required of the RMU.
What you'll do
- Risk Management Program: help write and maintain the FCM's Risk Management Program under CFTC Regulation 1.11, including risk appetite, tolerance limits, methodologies and escalation paths.
- Limits and monitoring: set and monitor pre-trade and intraday limits for market, credit, margin, concentration and volume exposure. Detect breaches and escalate them promptly to senior management.
- Margin, credit and liquidation risk: Develop and monitor the FCM's customer-margin and risk-limit framework, including house margin add-ons where appropriate, customer credit and concentration limits, deficit monitoring, liquidation thresholds and escalation procedures for accounts experiencing adverse market movements.
- Stress testing: run stress tests, scenario analysis and exposure aggregation across customers, products and venues.
- Liquidity, capital and counterparties: monitor liquidity, capital, and counterparty and depository exposure with Finance. Provide risk oversight of customer-fund segregation and residual interest.
- Settlement and operational risk: Assess clearing, settlement, contract-expiration, technology, data and third-party risks, including controls around order entry, position management and settlement. Where applicable, assess risks associated with contracts approaching expiration or final settlement.
- Risk governance and reporting: Prepare quarterly Risk Exposure Reports for senior management, as well as interim reports when material changes in risk exposure occur, and coordinate required regulatory filings. Track recommended RMP changes and remediation items through completion.
- New business: assess the risk of new products, venues and clearing relationships before launch.
What you bring
- 4–8 years in market, credit or margin risk at an FCM, clearing firm, DCO, broker-dealer or trading firm.
- Strong command of futures and derivatives margining (SPAN or similar), exposure measurement and liquidation practices.
- Hands-on experience with limits, stress testing and risk reporting to senior management.
- Working knowledge of FCM risk obligations, including Regulation 1.11, segregation and capital.
- Strong quantitative and data skills (Python, SQL or advanced Excel).
- Clear written communication for governance and regulatory reporting.
- The independence and judgment to challenge the business when needed.
- Comfort building process from scratch in a fast-moving 0-to-1 environment.
- A clean regulatory record, with no NFA or FINRA disciplinary history.
Nice to have
- Experience at a retail-facing or technology-first FCM.
- Perpetual futures, 24/7 markets, crypto or stablecoin collateral experience.
- Exposure to helping build or reviewing a Risk Management Program, or to CFTC/NFA exams.
- FRM, CFA or similar certification.