Playing the Winning Hand
Her employer might be “the house,” but it’s the Stevens campus that Jaynell Gomes considers home.
Currently the quantitative analyst for Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City, the 2022 graduate of the Stevens School of Business financial engineering master’s program credits her Stevens experience for both her professional and personal growth. Arriving in Hoboken with two suitcases and many questions, she quickly found her community.
“It feels so safe, honestly,” she said. “When I came to campus the first time, I was very nervous, coming from a different country and barely knowing the culture. What am I going to do? How am I going to manage everything? But then I started talking to people, and the professors were so kind-hearted. They understood my perspective. There are a lot of students at Stevens who come from an international background, and I think the faculty just connects to you so personally that you feel like you're at home. I feel Stevens has, in a way, become home to many international students. Working in this industry can get stressful, but coming back to school is always a pleasure. It’s always very heartwarming.”
With her heart full, Jaynell was able to focus on the reason she came to Stevens, filling her head with the knowledge she needed to build a career in finance and tech. She earned her bachelor’s degree in information technology from Mumbai University in her native India in 2020, and the pandemic delayed her plan to come to Stevens. She did her first semester online before arriving in Hoboken for the spring 2021 semester.
“I realized I was looking for more than a code-heavy path,” Jaynell said. “I wanted a career that blended innovation, analysis and real impact. I was always very comfortable with numbers. I was a top student in mathematics, but I was looking for ways to combine mathematics, finance and tech. When I started researching programs, I kept hearing the same thing: Stevens has one of the strongest financial engineering programs and should be at the top of my list. I consulted a few people back in India who studied here, and they said they had an amazing experience. Plus, being so close to New York provides exceptional networking opportunities. The curriculum is rigorous, and Stevens has a strong, well-earned reputation.”
Coming in without formal financial training was initially demanding, but Jaynell embraced the challenge. With the School of Business faculty’s support and guidance, she quickly gained confidence, found ways to connect with the material, and thrived in the classroom.
“Before Stevens, I was solely coding. I had no modeling experience,” she recalled. “I had no background on how to use my code. I just knew how to code. Stevens gave me more structure. Speaking to the professors, they always guided me. I had no idea of any finance concepts. I had one semester of financial management during my bachelor’s. I worried about not picking up what the professor was talking about, but if I had questions, they would start from scratch and answer the basics.”
The classroom was not the only place Jaynell felt supported in her efforts to learn new things. She utilized SSB’s Corporate Outreach and Professional Advancement resources to hone essential job-search skills like resume building and interview preparation.
“There was a time during my last semester when I felt totally lost,” Jaynell said. “I always knew that we had resources, but I didn't know how to reach out to them. I thought that maybe I was too late, but I reached out to Professor (Emmanuel) Hatzakis. He advised me to reach out to COPA. They really helped me build my resume and started working with me on interviews. That’s where the actual grind started because they started mock interviewing me and giving me training. I really improved, and I think that was a very powerful resource that not only helped me academically to communicate with people, but it also helped me in growing my career.”
The hard work paid off. After graduating in December 2022, she began her full-time career in NYC as a junior credit analyst for a financial service company on Wall Street in February 2023. She was promoted to credit risk analyst less than a year later and moved into her current role at Hard Rock in August 2024.
While not a traditional finance career path, the gaming and hospitality industry has been an ideal place for Jaynell to use her skills.
“I would never have imagined that I would be working for a casino,” she said. “Honestly, I always knew that Wall Street was my home. I did work on Wall Street for a year and a half, but when I came across this opportunity, I was given the responsibility to connect Wall Street and the gaming industry. They hired me to bring the quantitative aspect into the casino. Stevens really helped me because I learned all these different innovations that I then used on Wall Street, and I’ve been able to bring those to Hard Rock.”
“I am the first quantitative analyst working in the IT department at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City,” she continued. “I was able to plant the seeds for AI innovation, and I’ve brought quantitative models and a lot of anomaly detections. I use my models to predict who could be cheating and who could be a fraud. That data really helped the surveillance department spot the red flags. We’ve been able to add many variations of this anomaly detection in different branches like hospitality, food and beverage, security, facilities and human resources.”
For Jaynell, propelling an organization into the future means staying rooted in her past.
“Even now, I reach out to my professors, and they help guide me about what I can do better,” she said. “I still talk to Professor Hatzakis about things I’m working on and my achievements. They are always willing to stay in touch. They never just leave you after you graduate, and that's something that holds special value to me.”
