An Inside Look
Get to know the team and learn more about our experiences working at Alphataraxia.
Anid
Fiona
Jakob
Tell me a little bit about your background and what drew you to apply to Alphataraxia?
Originally, I was going to be a mechanical engineer at Princeton, so I took all of the basic engineering classes. I really enjoyed the idea of being part of the energy revolution and was really passionate about the energy transition away from fossil fuels. However, after I took my first lab I realized a technical, hands-on approach wasn’t for me and pivoted away from that. I started doing more optimization and statistics under the financial engineering department. I also got a sustainable energy certificate where I pursued a bunch of classes about the grid, energy economics, environmental policy and science, while also getting a really rigorous education in statistics, machine learning, and optimization.
When I was about to graduate I had just written my thesis on peer to peer energy networks, localized energy markets, and had written this big paper that used blockchain technology to facilitate transactions in that ecosystem. I really wanted to keep exploring that avenue, using my skill sets in data and finance.
Alphataraxia was one of the first companies that popped up in my job search so I was super excited by their work and really intrigued by the whole idea of energy markets. I hadn’t known that there were financial participants that provided liquidity and price convergence in the markets. Throughout the interview process I got more and more excited about the team and then the work itself was really invigorating from my perspective and my interests, so it felt like a perfect fit.
I studied mechanical engineering at Stanford, with a focus on energy systems modeling. I originally found out about ATX through a friend who was a summer intern here. Later that year, I was looking for a job in the energy industry and came across an ATX job posting sent out by the Stanford Energy Club. I went through the interview process and was super impressed with everything. It was clear how much the managers valued the opinions of their existing team, because I spoke in depth with every person in the office. The process seemed intentional and thorough, and every person I met was respectful, authentic, and enthusiastic. On top of that, the work seemed challenging and, as an energy nerd, I was very excited to learn in depth about electricity markets and the grid.
I went to Stanford University and studied what's called Energy Resources Engineering. I originally thought that I wanted to go into petroleum engineering and did an internship at a petroleum service company and realized it wasn't really for me. I wanted to stay in energy, but I didn’t want to be in petroleum so I increased the scope of jobs that I was looking at and anything that touched the energy space, including Alphataraxia. I met Peter (the founder) at a career fair and I thought the work was really cool, liked the interaction, and had a great first impression. I’ve been here since 2015 so I'm approaching my six year mark.