Clearing up confusion from previous waterloo S&T topics.

qwertylad:

I used the search feature to find information on, how Waterloo stacks up for S&T jobs. However, there are some questions that are still unclear and would like some clarifications. 1.)Which programs are preferred? *Computer Science Co-op *Any DD (double degree programs) *Math major *Engineering (what kind) 2.)How does UofT's engineering compare? 3.)Can Western, Queens, or Schulich match or exceed Waterloo in trading jobs? 4.)How are the placements for the jobs in NY, London, and Asia-Pacific offices? 5.)How likely to land a front office job assuming there is a front office job in trading?(feel free to correct me here)

PS: Can anyone recommend any books on trading?

1) Engineering (personally know mechatronics guys in BBs), DD, CompSci and Mathematics (in that order) 2) Waterloo generally places better than Skule. 3) I attend one of these schools and they all suck in comparison to Waterloo's S&T placements. 4) Decent for London and NY. 5) I'm not sure what you're trying to ask here.

Thanks for the response, and what I meant by front office was the following.

Front office: implement trading strategies, i.e. develop software that takes market information (prices) and outputs orders. Heavy on maths, specifically statistics, low on actual tricky software development.

Back office: develop and maintain software that keeps track of positions, reconciles internal data with external input (reports from brokers, banks and other counterparties) interfaces with price data providers (i.e. reuters, bloomberg) and makes sure the data is available in a timely manner for the fron office guys. Heavy on IT and more interesting software development issues (huge volumes of data, making reliable connections over shaky interfaces, etc.)

But the exact borders between front and back (and middle even) vary from company to company, so you should always ask.

Source: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1641633/what-does-front-office-back-…