Fundamental + Quant role at HF
Feel like I have a somewhat unique background. I'm incoming IB SA at an EB, but also have experience interning in quant trading at a MM, previously worked as a SWE intern at a FAANG.
I'm choosing to pursue the banking path over something more technical for several personal reasons (comp growth, lack of interest in big tech, don't think I'm cut out for quant trading) but was wondering if there's any roles at HFs that could take advantage of a traditional banking + quant/tech background? Heard a bit about "quantamental" but it's very ambiguous and I'm not sure if there's roles that actually combine both fundamental and quantitative analysis at the level I'm interested in.
I can give this a stab. A lot of hedge funds have teams for analyzing large amounts of alternative data (e.g., debit/credit card data, email receipts, satellite images, etc.) to help inform investment teams. Some examples include the Market Intelligence Team at P72; Citadel has something too (here's an example posting for a Sector Data Analyst: https://www.citadel.com/careers/details/global-equities-sector-data-ana…). I've interviewed for one of these places before and they've mentioned that it is possible for someone to move from the data team into an investment pod if the PM they work with likes them. Not sure if this was what you were looking for?
Super helpful, thanks. In these cases, do you think these data analysts would be "decision makers" in that they actually have a direct contribution to PnL, or just more of a support/secondary role to others? And could you see this type of role existing in pods/funds with a traditional L/S fundamental strategy? I feel like this could be a lot more common for fixed income or event-driven strategies though.
I'm also concerned that this type of role would be perceived as too data-oriented and technical for me coming out of a IB analyst or PE associate stint.
Really appreciate the insight as my question was really ambiguous, and honestly don't know if I'm completely misunderstanding how HFs and pods work since I've had pretty limited exposure
In the teams/roles I mentioned, not decision makers, more support. Decision makers would be PM / analysts in the pods. You do see these roles existing in pods/funds with a traditional L/S fundamental strategy. However as mentioned, you can move from one to the other if you do a good job. I think if you leverage your quant/SWE background and also emphasize your understanding of the finance component, it shouldn't be a problem. It's hard to find people with both the ability to process and manipulate large amounts of data and solid finance understanding (except for quants, but they're working as quants).
Thanks for clarifying. Feel like these are definitely super cool opportunities, but definitely more interested in a more direct role with ability to impact investment decisions.
Any idea if there's pods or funds that exist where traditional fundamental analysts (in addition to the standard models they do in Excel) are encourage to source/analyze data using Python/R, or perhaps help with trade execution that might otherwise be handled by a dedicated quant team?
I feel like a lot of places want to go more in that direction with their fundamental analysts. You have to be careful and make sure the right infrastructure is set up to support you though - it doesn't help if they have a bunch of aspirations but no support, e.g., data engineers, data scientists, data for you to analyze, etc. (data is expensive...)
Was randomly scrolling through LinkedIn and came across this job which is another example of something 'quantemental': L/S Equities Data Scientist
I think you should reach out to some folks in the industry (in fundamental pods if that's where you want to work) that have more quant-looking backgrounds and ask how much they actually get to code in their jobs. Heads up, it's not going to be that much, but things are slowly shifting.
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