Hi All!
I wonder what is the situation in terms of family and having kids like at the aforementioned funds?
This is a quite intense way of life, you will probably start at 7am leave at 7pm, spend 2 hours commuting to the suburbs if you have a young family, so you end up knackered by the time you get home. On weekends you can't really decompress as you need to look after the kids. How do people cope with that? Do many people have kids whilst working at these shops?
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Yes people have kids.. not everyone works until 7pm and commute to the burbs. Lot of wives stay at home or work less demanding jobs. It’s taxing for sure
1) Yes a lot of pod shop PMs/analysts have kids. 2) No, they do not spend as much time with their kids as a parent should
The senior PMs I know come in at 8 and leave at 4:30. One of them plays pickleball everyday and seems like he has an awesome WLB. I think it's going to depend whether you're asking a junior PM vs a senior guy.
My wife is pregnant, but she doesn't work, so she'll take care of our kids. I work reasonable hours during the week (6am to 6/7pm), zero work Friday later afternoon to Sunday morning, then get some work in Sunday afternoon. Can get hectic at times, but need to make sacrifices. I am looking forward to a lengthy sit-out one day, hopefully when my kid is of the age where I can be a bit more impactful
ha ha :) know exactly who we're talking about
Do you have time for church on Sundays?
I understand why people might think it is difficult, but of all the high paying jobs I think this is one of the easiest for family (compared to lawyer, doctor, investment banking, even many corporate jobs). Why?
1) there is essentially no travel
2) you make a lot of money
3) you really only have to be “on” when the market is open (yes research happens at all times, yes markets are global, but you still can leave most days around 4-5)
4) as you become more senior at a HF you have so much control over your time
5) when you decide to sit out you generally have a nice non compete period and pay
I can go into details on all of the above, but I don’t think it’s an impossible thing.
This assumes you're one of the outliers and don't get canned in your likely short journey. The stress of that is likely worse than any of the jobs you've listed above..
Sure but if you have a short journey then you aren’t worried about being a HF PM and having a family. You are worried about being whatever you end up doing next and having a family.
No travel? Complete opposite for me but I’m junior
You need to run your family market neutral. If you are net long kids, your WLB will suffer at a pod shop
Net short kids and short wife is the way. Hire a chauffeur / butler who will look after your kids and wife while you’re away and long after you’re gone.
I am too young to comment on this but confirm that many senior analysts / PM I know very well have wives and kids and some of them live in the burbs.
They work early mornings (some with long commute like 1hr -1.5) and head home before 6pm, dinner, then wfh again bc its the game.
And some v established PMs wives just stay at home, senior analysts have very supportive wives - met with some of them, most are in chill jobs in Finance or some unrelated industries.
They seem to manage it well but if counting the hours - I think I spend nearly the same amount of time with them under the same roof vs their families - ha
Once your kids are about 3+ they will end daycare/preschool/after-school activities after 3pm anyway. Plus many people have part-time nannies who take their kids to their final activity of the day (soccer, baseball, ballet, dance). So if you leave at 4:30pm as stated you are home when they will be home.
The most tax-ing thing is who makes dinner if the part-time nanny does not cook. But some nights it is nice to decompress from the market cook/help prep dinner.
As mentioned couple hours after dinner or so once near kids bedtime you do some wfh.
It is very manageable but yes you are never going to be the parent in other careers who could do the morning routines nor take their kid to the playground/park everyday after school pickup. Especially if you need to make time for yourself be it the gym or so.
Best Sharpe is to find a pod wifey and become a stay at home dad.
Know a guy that found himself a prop shop wifey and stayed home. Oh so jealous.
At a pod shop, no wife, no kids but people around me seem to manage it.
1) Most shops are pretty flexible with WFH these days and are willing to set you up fully with tech etc so your WFH office is basically equivalent to the office office. Nobody really gives a f where you are if you're making money. Plenty of people do this basically full time or go home early to WFH especially if they're commuting and want to beat the traffic.
2) Akin to point 1, as long as you're making money you can probably work wherever these places have offices i.e. not just NYC or London. Some shops have offices in random, affluent suburban places for fundraising; I know people who shifted to work at those for WLB reasons. You can also work somewhere like HK/Singapore/Dubai where commutes are decent and you can get a maid to cook meals/clean/look after the kids etc.
3) You're basically working market hours, I don't know many people working 7am-7pm i.e. 60 hours a week in front of a PC (probably that much time if you factor in reading etc, but that can be done flexibly through your free time). I feel much more for people on the sell-side who have to be available all through market hours with a margin on each side + spend half their evenings meeting clients. Or, you know, bankers who are up all night checking drafts of pitch books to make sure they're formatted correctly or whatever it is they do.
You're saying you don't think people at MMHFs work 60 hours per week? Isn't that the minimum most work?
If you factor in reading etc then yeah 60 hours is probably accurate. But no way the average person at my shop is spending 60 hours in office in front of a computer. The place is almost dead by 1830. People do eat lunch at their desk but a lot of people go to the gym etc during the day; I really don't think the hours are horrendous. Ymmv by PM and time of year though.
Gotta find a wife that doesn’t prioritize work if I’m going to be honest. Unless you want your kids never to see both their parents.
This. I have recently started working with a senior MD at my company who manages ~100 people across 4 of our US offices. She seems to be online all the time with frequent travel across the country. Her husband is largely SAH and works part time. 2 parents with demanding careers (i.e. long hours + travel) are not compatible with raising a family.
P72 not getting a title mention here is kinda hilarious. Wondering if anyone else noticed that
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