PIMCO's CTO is building a centralized data platform

PIMCO, the $1.7 trillion asset manager, is trying to turn every employee into a “citizen data scientist,” chief technology officer Dirk Manelski told Business Insider in a recent interview. The firm is building an internal data platform that's already used by hundreds of employees. Instead of asking a business intelligence group for a report, employees can get data on their own. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.PIMCO has plenty of data scientists – but now, the $1.7 trillion investment firm wants every employee to be one.Chief technology officer Dirk Manelski told Business Insider in a recent interview that the firm is building a data science platform for all employees to use. While the firm has been integrating data science for decades, the centralized platform represents an evolution from the earlier days of data science, where employees would ask particular groups for reports or numbers. Now, Manelski wants each of the firm's 2,500 employees to be a “citizen data scientist,” meaning they'd be able to use basic tools that fit their particular needs, regardless of position or location. This means the risk management team could use it directly to determine portfolio risks and performance as markets change. The global wealth management team can now tap data and analytics to create more customized solutions and client service to advisors. See more: Investment giant PIMCO is quietly poaching executives from Blackstone and State Street as it plays catch up in a $5 trillion market“There's a lot of focus on delivering [data science] for portfolio managers and quants, but it's literally for everyone at the firm. We want everyone to be able to find and ask questions of data,” he said. “No matter where you sit in the firm, if you have questions you want to answer, data you want to analyze, you're empowered to do it.”Hundreds of employees are already using the centralized platform, much of which has been built internally and with open-source technology, such as Python. Manelski, who joined PIMCO last year from JPMorgan, said the platform gives employees more flexibility than requesting a report. “What we want, regardless of the analytical method you're using, is for that process and data to be easy and consistent to use,” Manelski said. “There was a world a decade ago where you'd say to technology, 'please do this for me.' More and more, technology is being built for the individual.”PIMCO is far from the only manager reworking staff to better utilize data science. Joe Boerio, the CTO of Franklin Templeton, talked to Business Insider earlier this year about his efforts to embed data scientists in investment teams. He's also trying to teach investment professionals some technology skills. Sign up here for our weekly newsletter Wall Street Insider, a behind-the-scenes look at the stories dominating banking, business, and big deals.“Longer-term, you won't have the separation of tech and business,” Boerio said. In the future, he expects the lines between business and technology to blur. “We'll see more formal programs over the next few years with ways to measure levels of data science adoption and maturity of practices within teams,” he said. “It could be a combination of things that gets you to a desired state maturity level. The ongoing challenge with maturity is that it is a moving target with the advancements of technology and business the definition of maturity is always in motion.”Read more:BlackRock is quietly building a team of 30 data scientists to create a next-generation stock-lending platformArtificial intelligence is transforming a $22.9 trillion investing strategy - but the cutting-edge technology comes with a new set of problemsJPMorgan's head of asset management explains how he's been able to poach workers from Silicon ValleyBlackRock now has a higher percentage of technologists than JPMorgan, and it says a lot about the future of the money-management industryInvesting startup Pagaya just raised $100 million in a bet that technology can reshape the consumer credit markets