Reference Data Associate (Fixed Term Contract)

Company Overview

ICE operates the world’s largest stock exchange and global markets, leading in fixed income and data services. They connect people with data and technology to drive innovation and deliver insights that empower trading, risk management, and investment decisions.

Job Summary

This role combines financial data engineering with fixed income expertise. You will complete a structured onboarding program to independently manage securities data, ensuring accuracy and relevance for client use cases and internal analytics.

Responsibilities

• Parse, interpret, and transform structured and unstructured data from legal prospectuses, offering circulars, regulatory filings, trustee reports, and vendor feeds into normalized reference data fields, applying rule-based and judgment-driven methods to handle complex cases
• Execute multi-layer validation checks for data completeness, consistency, and business-rule conformance to meet accuracy and timeliness SLAs
• Investigate root causes of data anomalies and contribute to error taxonomy and resolution playbooks
• Monitor data pipelines for drift, gaps, and outliers, escalating systematic issues with supporting evidence
• Respond to client data inquiries with structured, well-reasoned written explanations including issue restatement, methodology, and resolution rationale
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders (Evaluated Pricing, Index, Analytics) to clarify reference data requirements and identify upstream data gaps
• Serve as a subject matter escalation point for less experienced analysts on data interpretation questions
• Conduct targeted research and outreach to issuers, underwriters, and trustees to source authoritative documentation, maintaining audit trails and metadata for compliance
• Identify workflow inefficiencies and propose automation or process redesign opportunities with quantified impact estimates
• Develop script-driven tools to accelerate repetitive data extraction and validation tasks
• Contribute to ad hoc analytical projects such as data quality dashboards, trend analyses, and executive reporting

Required competencies and certifications

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, economics, computer science, mathematics, or a related quantitative discipline
• Advanced Excel skills, including complex formulas and pivot tables
• Working knowledge of Python, SQL, or similar tools for data manipulation and automation
• Familiarity with AI tools to support data processing, analysis, and automation
• Proven ability to extract meaningful insights from dense legal and financial documents
• Strong written communication skills for producing client and stakeholder-facing documentation
• Fluency in English and proficiency in Mandarin to communicate effectively with stakeholders whose primary working language is Mandarin
• Excellent attention to detail and ability to work accurately under time pressure

Preferred competencies and qualifications

• Experience in fixed income operations, reference data, market data, or financial data management
• Exposure to fixed income instruments such as bonds, structured products, municipals, ABS/MBS, and convertibles
• Understanding of data governance frameworks, data lineage, or master data management concepts