Moving from systematic to semi-systematic

I've been in the macro space for a little over two years now, working in a systematic fund. My first job out of school. I'm getting a bit bored and really want to build a focus in my career. Often in this style it can feel like each asset class is just another time series for us to add to a strategy because its diversifying, theres really not that much emphasis on learning the "personality" of a certain market/currency/asset/country, at least in my team.

I like the skillset but really think this style is a bit rigid for my taste. Do you ever see a quant make the leap over to the semi-systematic side to be in a risk taking seat? I get plenty of outreach to be a glorified dev for a discretionary PM but would never leave my current seat for that.

I mean a seat where I can help run some strategies, have a sleeve, and also pick up some of that discretionary aspect of the trading.

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Personally, I've seen more full discretion to semi-discretion/systematic, than full systematic to it. 

I think a lot of it is sense. Team-wise, I'd say it's ~same, just as easy for full discretion to find a full systematic person to pair up, as the other way around. Sense-wise, imo, is where it gets a bit tricky. You'd need to showcase that you have the sense to do discretion, which is quite arbitrary tbh, and have X years of track records of consistentcy. 

It's probably hard to leap to another firm as dev and moving into discretionary risk-taking role. Not that you're not capable, just that the seat may not be available because likely there is someone on that side doing discretion part of work when looking for someone w/ zero discretion experience. 

So if your goal is moving to semi-discretion AND risk-taking, could try running your own little paper on the side, and keep records of that. Move directly into a risk-taking role or "analyst" role that hires you for your experience in discretion, rather than a "dev" role that hires you just for systematic. The latter is a lot harder. 

 

is ur fund fully systematic only

since u have a sleeve what’s stopping u from running semi sys strategies by urself

 

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