West (Laixi) Xu

许来西

“The sole strategy dev behind Time Research’s DeFi trading team—one of the world’s largest—building market-making, arbitrage, and trading systems across DEXs and CEXs.”
  •   Master of Quantitative Finance
  •   Fluent in English and Mandarin
  •   Singapore
  •   (+65) 91982092
  •   [email protected]


PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

Programming

  • Rustacean, 4 years of experience in Rust, primarily in trading; Open-sourced several experimental side projects in Rust; Developed high-performance Python packages in Rust using Maturin.
  • 8 years of Python experience, proficient in Python for big data analysis, data visualization, web scraping, common machine learning algorithms, and PyQt software development.
  • Independent quantitative investment open source projects on GitHub, with hundreds of stars and nearly 2000 annual commits.
  • Proficient in Linux systems and expert in Docker for deploying data/model pipelines.
  • Skilled in SQL/InfluxDB, mastering complex queries and multi-table associations; proficient in ORM and Query Builder technologies.
  • Second Prize in the Chinese National Postgraduate Mathematical Modeling Competition.

DeFi/Quant Trading

  • Over 2 years of full-time experience leading high-frequency DeFi/Quant trading development in Rust, powering the world's largest market maker on dydx/GMX, etc.
  • Developed multi-factor algorithm trading strategies, financial and high-frequency alpha factor development, backtesting, factor synthesis, Barra style neutrality, turnover rate optimization, event-driven strategies, factor correlation control, machine-based multi-factor synthesis methods, and strategy parameter tuning.
  • Won first prize in the Move-lang smart contract Hackathon organized by Starcoin for the project MyLegacy.
  • Well-versed in the cryptocurrency market, with a focus on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and DeFi.
  • Dedicated crypto maxi, optimistic about the industry's future.


WORK EXPERIENCE

Time Research2022.07 — Present

Quant Developer | Singapore

  • As the sole developer, built the entire trading system from 0 to 1, collaborating with two PMs.
  • Designed and built a high-performance strategy framework from the ground up in Rust, leveraging Tokio's async mechanism, surpassing Artemis (Paradigm's open-source framework) in scalability and efficiency.
  • Developed and optimized all trading strategies, including market-making, arbitrage, and flashloan strategies.
  • Led strategy execution, becoming the largest market maker on dYdX and GMX.
  • Managed $100M+ in assets and generated $20M+ profit in 2024, with all strategy code written independently.

Shanghai Junzhi Asset Management2019.03 — 2022.07

Quant Trader & Engineer | Shanghai

  • Developed two high-frequency T+0 stock trading models with version-controlled data/model pipelines.
  • Created a high-performance asynchronous event-driven trading Python API using Rust, Maturin, and ZeroMQ.
  • Developed a dashboard to monitor real-time PnL, holdings, and factor exposures.

Soochow Fintech2018.07 — 2019.03

Financial Engineering Intern | Shanghai

  • Developed and optimized a backtest framework, including batch backtest data visualization, factor IC/IR and effectiveness analysis, and Brinson attribution framework optimization.
  • Performed multi-source data comparison and cleaning, data visualization using Matplotlib and Plotly, and industry backfilling to ensure data consistency.
  • Real-time calculation of bond trading indicators, MySQL database management, automated data collection and consolidation, and Excel plug-in development using C#, composing bond trading strategies.


EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

Shanghai University · Quantitative Finance · Master of Finance2017.09 — 2019.06

Shanghai University · International Economics and Trade · Bachelor of Economics2013.09 — 2017.06