It's not rocket science...
Mod Note (Andy):Very pleased to introduce our newest blogger, Grizzled Guru. He has a very interesting background and a lot to share with you guys, hope you enjoy.
I never really started out with any intention of being in finance. I was a child of Sputnik. I was going to be a rocket scientist!
I grew up in the 1960's. The space race was on. We were gonna beat the Russkis to the moon! I fell in love with space and built a WAC Corporal model rocket. I was frail and nerdy, so I had no shot at the astronaut corps, but I could be a rocket scientist!
My parents gave me my first computer. It was a 3-bit (yes bit) mechanical marvel called a DigiComp. I loved it and played with it and honed my skills. I watched the moon shots and dreamed of being one of the engineers down at Mission Control.
In high school, I learned to program at McDonnell Douglas Astronautics which was conveniently located a few miles down the road. We used the computer (the entire company had only one mainframe) after hours communicating through a teletype. I was in heaven!
Out of high school, I went to the local university as an Electrical Engineering major. The dream was on track!
Or not. I crashed and burned and dropped out of college.
I ended up enlisting in the Air Force; stationed with a little group at Offutt AFB in Nebraska. I wrote ground systems software for satellites. I earned a Senior Space Badge! One of my friends became an astronaut! I was learning to fly! W00t! Rocket science is awesome!
I finished up my undergrad, went to grad school, and ended up at a Defense Physics lab in a nuclear weapons design group (great work if you can get it!). While it was not rocket science, it was nukes! NUKES!
As a computer scientist, my skills were fungible. I told my weapons physics co-lead that he could only work at two places in the world where he would not be assassinated by Mossad whereas I could sell my skills anywhere. He called me a computational whore.
Fast-forward a decade. I'm now working in New York for an eccentric billionaire building supercomputers (again, nice work if you can get it). I made a habit of interviewing one or two places a year just to see what was out there (and in case the eccentric billionaire moved the project to a tropical island with a volcano powered monorail and made us wear lab coats -- we know how that always turns out).
Through LinkedIn, I got hooked up with a big bank looking for a Python Guru. I wasn't really trying hard, but I burned up the technical interview. So, I make it to the interview with the big MD. He looks at me warily and asks why, after so many years of science work, I wanted to join a bank?
Now, at this stage, you can't just give the Willie Sutton answer. Most people give some bullshit answer about "interesting and challenging problems." Instead, I say that right now I work with physicists and mathematicians and that he works with physicists and mathematicians. He says, "yes, but..." I say that I do Monte Carlo simulations and he does Monte Carlo simulations. He says, "so what."
I lean in across the table and say quietly, "The only difference is that you keep score with money."
At that point, he leaps up, slaps the table with his hand, and says, "That's goddamn right, we keep score with money!"
And that my friends, is the absolutely almost true story of how I joined the 1%.
It may not be rocket science, but it sure looks an awful lot like it!
I love Grizzled Guru
Grizzled Guru : WSO :: Texas Oil Traer : DB
This is a cool story.
My flight instructor is a Texas wildcatter. I work at a NY prop trading shop now
What games do you enjoy playing in your free time? (Backgammon, Bridge, Chess, Poker, etc.)
I like to play Bridge a lot... I used to play a fair bit of online Poker, but on the free sites, it isn't really the same. I was my college's (the one I dropped out of!) Backgammon champion. Recently, I played a lot of Nethack at alt.org. Nethack is an old school text adventure game. You die a lot (though I've ascended to demigod status a few times).
I also like to play Bridge. I am also a big poker fan (not so much online, mainly house games with friends and the occasional trip down to Atlantic City). In recent years, I have really enjoy playing a Chinese card game that is similar to Bridge called "80 points."
It is supposedly very popular among a select subset in the prop trading community (I was first introduced to the game by a trader at Jane Street Capital).
Are you by any chance familiar with this game? Rules for the game can be found online, but I think this website below is particularly well done.
http://scripts.mit.edu/~zong/wpress/?p=176
Nice. Play online @ BBO, by any chance?
Hmmm, Python. Good post, thanks.
Glad you liked it!
Haha that was an awesome story. I love it. Goes to show that even if you mess up in college, if you're actually smart and know your shit (as you clearly do), you can still make. Especially doing what you love and are good at. Many, many years ago, I started to learn Python. It was to be the first step of many in a computer science/electrical engineering education and career. Stories like this really make me wish I had followed through.
Willie Sutton reference? YES
I'm always amused by the machinations and inventions of interview candidates when I ask the question about why they want to work here!
Great post... made my morning, thank you!
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