First quant job: which offer do I take?
Hi all, I'm currently weighing two offers for quant roles at prop shops but having trouble weighing the pros and cons. One role would be at a small but rapidly growing firm, while the other would be at a much larger firm. My long-term goal is PM at a pod shop (very original, I know), so I want to take the role that best sets me up for that.
My intuition is that there's a risk-reward tradeoff here. If things at the small firm go well I could take on a lot of responsibility, build a track record quickly, and get hands on experience with every stage of the research process. On the other hand, if the firm stalls out or implodes, that would obviously be... less good. The larger firm seems like it would be far more stable, but also give me far fewer opportunities to really stand out from the pack.
With that in mind, I'm leaning towards taking the offer at the smaller firm. The one wrinkle is that their AUM is much smaller, currently somewhere in the 5-20M range (edit: this is hearsay that I'm having trouble finding evidence for, but I'm at least reasonably certain that 100M is the hard ceiling on their AUM). Would that make it significantly more difficult for me to transition into the kind of future role I'm interested in?
Based on the most helpful WSO content, here are some key considerations for your decision:
Small Firm (5-20M AUM)
Pros: - Responsibility and Experience: You could take on a lot of responsibility quickly, build a track record, and gain hands-on experience with every stage of the research process. - Rapid Growth Potential: If the firm grows rapidly, you could benefit significantly from being an early member.
Cons: - Risk of Failure: If the firm stalls or implodes, it could negatively impact your career trajectory. - AUM Concerns: Smaller AUM might make it harder to transition to a larger role in the future, especially if the firm doesn't scale as expected.
Larger Firm
Pros: - Stability: Larger firms generally offer more stability and resources. - Reputation: Working at a well-known firm can enhance your resume and provide a strong network.
Cons: - Limited Opportunities to Stand Out: You might have fewer opportunities to distinguish yourself and take on significant responsibilities early on.
Additional Considerations:
Conclusion:
Given your long-term goal of becoming a PM at a pod shop, the smaller firm might offer more immediate opportunities to build a track record and gain diverse experience. However, you should carefully assess the firm's growth potential and stability. If the smaller firm has a promising trajectory and you believe in its potential, it could be a worthwhile risk. Otherwise, the stability and reputation of the larger firm might be a safer bet.
For more detailed insights, you can refer to the following WSO threads: - https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/hedge-fund/qa-hf-analyst-5bn-fund…</a">Q&A: HF Analyst @ $5bn+ Fund - Breaking In and Transition to Risk-Taking Role - https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/asset-management/is-anyone-bullis…</a">Is Anyone Bullish on the Future of Asset Management???
Good luck with your decision!
Sources: Q&A: HF Analyst @ $5bn+ Fund - Breaking In and Transition to Risk-Taking Role, Q&A: HF Analyst @ $5bn+ Fund - Breaking In and Transition to Risk-Taking Role, Difficulty to make a career out of AM, Is Anyone Bullish on the Future of Asset Management???, Centerview vs. Jane Street vs. Meta
By pod shop do you mean a multi manager prop trading firm like Tower or multimanager HFs. 5-20MM AUM seems very low for any sort of trading firm let alone quant firm which tend to require larger head counts and fixed costs for research infrastructure. With that sort of capital it seems more realistic to focus on niche microstructure opportunities or some very low capacity products. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with those sorts of trading strategies and some successful traders will make at least low seven figures with them but from what I understand that's a very different business than multimanager hedge funds which have lots of capital to deploy and are exclusively looking for pods that could potentially scale to big pnls.
Without knowing anything about else about the firms it's hard to give concrete advice but I also wouldn't necessarily expect to get any sort of sharable track record from any sort of prop trading firm unless there are contractual pnl payouts.
When I say pod shop I mean multi-manager hedge fund. From what little I've seen, I find the higher-capacity/longer-horizon strategies that they work on to be more interesting, but to be fair this is a weakly held belief because I recognize that I'm a new grad with no industry experience.
I got the AUM figure from one of the other applicants to the small firm, but after looking into it myself I'm not sure where they got that number from. I can concretely say that they employ around 25 traders and don't appear to have ever filed a 13F—it's my understanding that this implies their AUM has never exceeded 100M. I don't know if those numbers make it possible to form a better estimate of the amount of capital that they are working with.
More broadly, do you have a sense of how transferable the research/trading skills I would acquire at either firm might be? Are the types of strategies that they work with so different (by virtue of their respective sizes) that choosing one or the other will silo me into that type of work for the rest of my career, or is it easy to lateral into a larger firm regardless?
I don't think it's very common to switch from prop trading to research at large capacity low frequency trading at those sort of hedge funds but it's not unheard of either. Depending on the structure of the larger firm you or may not have a reasonable chance to get opportunities to a broader set of things there. Longer horizon strategies tend to involve more alt data, more theoretically rigorous research processes and more risk management while high frequency strategies generally involve fitting on a lot of market data, detailed microstructure knowledge and some live experimentation so the methods are fairly different although there are also mid-frequency strategies that are somewhere in between.
I'm not an expert on 13f forms but I believe the 100 million refers to securities and not AUM. Equity books are often leveraged but there are also many non equity investments and uses of capital so I don't think there is going to be a very close correspondence between AUM and having to file 13f.
As a first job, definitely the larger firm.
$5-20M isn’t a fund. It’s some guy’s PA. Even at $100M that is a family office with way too high of a head count. You should absolutely join the larger shop. You are too young and inexperienced to be worried about small fish big pond. You are not trying to “stand out from the pack.” You need to learn to walk first.
People will also know where you got your training from when you do eventually leave. Don’t pick some no-name fund for a first job when you have a choice. Pretty good general rule
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