Trading Tech/Quantitative Career Paths

So, with IB and most other FO roles, there seems to be many cookie cutter career paths that you can easily search. However, I cannot seem to find anything for a career paths in the trading tech/quant strats. If say you were to get an internship in one of these type of roles during undergrad (think two sigma, DE Shaw, Millennium, Citadel, Point72), what kind of roles/jobs would you expect one after the other (grad then say 3-5 years then 10+ years)?

I assume it's still pretty wide open because of the nature of technology, but im curious nonetheless.

 

Most quantitative traders/analysts have a graduate degree in a field like econ, math, sciences, or another quantitative view. It would be IMPOSSIBLE to attain an amount of knowledge equiv. to a PhD by way of "independent study" (and by "independent study", I guess you mean reading Nuclear Phynance posts, and books). The skills you need are: a programming (C, C++, Matlab, Javascript, VBA, etc.), the shit you learn in a graduate degree, and you have to be able to generate ideas.

By the fact that you mentioned your math major, I think that you believe that you have a chance at a quant fund. Let me tell you, YOU DON'T. .............................................................................. http://ittakesanationofhaircutstoholdusback.wordpress.com/ It Takes A Nation Of Haircuts To Hold Us Back.

......................................................................... I have a next level rolodex.

statarb- im sure your just fondling yourself thinking your going to make lots of money in the market using your complicated sophisticated models. News for you pal... trading is about so much more than crunching some numbers and finding market anomalies.

"Oh the ladies ever tell you that you look like a fucking optical illusion" - Frank Slaughtery 25th Hour.

"Oh the ladies ever tell you that you look like a fucking optical illusion" - Frank Slaughtery 25th Hour.
 
trade4shit:
thinking your going to make lots of money in the market using your complicated sophisticated models

Correction: I AM going to make lots of money in the market using complicated sophisticated models. Get back to fetching me that latte, you back office urchin. .............................................................................. http://ittakesanationofhaircutstoholdusback.wordpress.com/ It Takes A Nation Of Haircuts To Hold Us Back.

......................................................................... I have a next level rolodex.
 

as far as I know, most quant analyst roles at hedge funds generally want phds. Although several like Blackrock, D.E. Shaw, AQR, GSAM QRG, 2 sigma and some more, hire math/phys/stat/cs/something hardcore majors straight out of college. many top Prop shops, which need their traders to be mathematical, like SIG, JSC, DRW will almost exclusively look at math/engineering/cs/perhaps hard science for their trader tracks. Most of these places just want you to have your calc, probability, often programming, sometimes econ down and they'll teach you the rest. As a math [insert other hardcore] major in college you do have more quant analyst and quant trader opportunities open to you than an econ major would. And while many places want quant analysts to have phds, many others don't require it.

 
Best Response

I'm not really sure what you mean by this. There isn't a product that requires high level math to trade. You use high level math for automated trading strategies, risk mgmt, pricing, forecasting, etc....but you don't use high-level math on the spot with human decision making.

Traders at aforementioned shops like SIG, JSC and DRW are great at mental math and their math backgrounds generally enable them to solve problems and recognize opportunities quickly, but it's more about building intuition. A lot of hard science and quantitative majors may fall into that category, but there are a fair number of history/poli sci/etc majors at those shops who are just really good at poker and mind teasers.

A day trader may have worked after-hours building a pricing model, but he/she needs to use intuition to decide how to employ that model. In that sense, they are both a quantitative analyst and a trader.

That said, to be a quantitative analyst, you'll need to know differential equations and programming in C and C++. If you don't have a graduate degree, you'll have a hard time being recruited directly into a program, although I know people who've transitioned to those roles out of a trader asst. program, once they've established they have the hard skills.

 

My impression is that they're adverse to business and econ majors - prefer math, comp sci, and physics so long as they're quick with numbers.

But if math/comp/physics guys get recruited into trading, they will not be using much (any) of what they learned in school. For most jobs, what you study is a screening mechanism, not a gauge of hard skills.

 

obviously higher math is orders of magnitude more difficult than anything you would see in the labor force outside of academia or a research lab...

e.g. sample math quals:

Prove that A_n(n\geq 5) is simple. What is a separable extension? Give a polynomial with S_3 as a Galois group.

State the Radon-Nykodim thm., give an example of a meager set of full measure, of a nonmeasurable set. What is a Banach space, L^p. Hilbert space. What is a conditional expectation? Why does it exist? When do two Wiener processes induce absolutely continuous (wrt to each other) measure on C[0,1]? Is it true, that for every sequence a_n of real numbers there exists a function whose nth derivative at zero is equal to a_n? Is the integral of a Markov process a Markov process itself?

Prove the Riemann Mapping theorem. What is an entire function? Weierstrass factorization theorem? Why are there no doubly periodic functions of order one? Give an example of a Phragmen-Lindelof theorem.

 
Funniest
MichaelHutchens:
obviously higher math is orders of magnitude more difficult than anything you would see in the labor force outside of academia or a research lab...

e.g. sample math quals:

Prove that A_n(n\geq 5) is simple. What is a separable extension? Give a polynomial with S_3 as a Galois group.

State the Radon-Nykodim thm., give an example of a meager set of full measure, of a nonmeasurable set. What is a Banach space, L^p. Hilbert space. What is a conditional expectation? Why does it exist? When do two Wiener processes induce absolutely continuous (wrt to each other) measure on C[0,1]? Is it true, that for every sequence a_n of real numbers there exists a function whose nth derivative at zero is equal to a_n? Is the integral of a Markov process a Markov process itself?

Prove the Riemann Mapping theorem. What is an entire function? Weierstrass factorization theorem? Why are there no doubly periodic functions of order one? Give an example of a Phragmen-Lindelof theorem.

This fool is obviously trying to prove to us that he knows something about Kindergarten math. .............................................................................. http://ittakesanationofhaircutstoholdusback.wordpress.com/ It Takes A Nation Of Haircuts To Hold Us Back.
......................................................................... I have a next level rolodex.

if you want a "quant" oriented job in TRADING right out of undergrad (which it sounds like that's what you're talking about, e.g. JSC), go for straight A's in your schooling, and study on the side as much as you can about basic probabilities (you can go out and find a bunch of typically asked probability questions--PM me I talked to JSC although didn't make it into their upper rungs). I would also brush up on fast mental math (like 2 digit multiplication offhand, division, decimals, all that goodness) just to keep you fast in the interviews.

Aside from that, dip your feet in the "quant" field by reading some Natenberg or Hull (they're both good on options / Hull goes over other derivatives too) and supplement it with a good deal of reading about quant trading too (you can Wikipedia a lot of the terms). As somebody already mentioned some good C++ or other programming skills look mighty good even if you want to be in the cockpit.

I can't believe all the banter that's being exchanged when a simple question was asked. Can we just stay on the subject???

Good luck. Take hard math courses until you graduate, take some Comp Sci / Programming, and self read as much as you can.

 

Yes, I'm planning to do a PhD but I would prefer to do it part-time so that I can work as well. By work I mean that I will work as an engineer, effectively learning a lot at work and a lot doing my PhD. Do companies value par-time PhD? As far as I know at the end whether you do it part-time or full time you end up with the same qualification but obviously part-time might take you 1-2 years longer.

 

Any self-respecting company won't accept a part-time PhD, nor would a self-respecting university award them.

I have friends in banking that are doing part-time PhDs but they're douchebags so I screwed their girlfriends.

Just Do It
 

Does a part time PhD not seem a little counter intuitive to you? The whole purpose of the degree is to immerse you in the subject and put you at the forefront of the field. I have yet to meet a serious PhD student who has a mindset of obtaining a private sector job after graduation. I would never take one seriously who doesn't love the subject enough to stop working and make their life revolve around the task at hand.

People who want to do quant modelling really should step back and ask if it is about the money, because their are so many fields that require this skill set. If it is about the money, be honest with yourself and admit it you will be able to go further in life as a realist.

If about the money then take the mfe and start applying brownian motion and heat equations to finance but I don't think it will be as intellectual as you probably think it is.

 
ChapelThriller:

Was hoping to get some recs for good books/resources. Although I'm good with and interested in playing around with numbers, by no means is my background quantitative, especially in regards to finance. Any good books on learning the quant stuff behind interest rate and/or FX products, esp for derivs and the structured stuff?

Cheers

An ex BB derivs trader recommended this book a while back as a very good one to start off with learning the technicals: http://www.amazon.com/Option-Trading-Volatility-Strategies-Techniques/d…

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