Quant Trader From Non-Target?
Apologies if this question has been asked here before but I'm relatively new here.
Current junior majoring in math at a non-target and am really looking to break into a HF/prop shop as a quant trader. However unsure how to go about this. I have previous internship experience at a f500 and I completed a year long research program in my school (tailored towards probability) but I doubt this is enough. I know many of the well know HF/PT firms recruit from the top schools but is there any way that I can get in coming from a non-target?
Thanks
It’s gonna be tough. There are very few positions and tons of applicants. Top top (Jane Street) shops will take MIT/Princeton level math guys with high Putnam scores. Still top shops (DE Shaw, Two Sigma) have pipelines from targets with similar backgrounds.
The problem is that there is little networking, and even once you get the interview (hard enough), you have to be very very good. You have to get the questions right and get them right quickly.
FWIW I went down this path briefly and got an offer from a T2 shop for offcycle internship; ultimately decided against it because personality-wise the industry and work isn’t for me. Background is math major with lots of research at target.
Good luck. Best advice I can give is try to network to get your foot in the door, though not sure how much networking helps in the quant world. Most of my friends who are quants did not network.
For starters, thank you for responding. Yes, getting even an interview is just really really difficult. I'm not complaining because I understand that these top firms (Cit,JS) have absolutely every right to be really lean in their hiring process considering their TC.
If you can say, what was it that turned you off?
I don't like the idea of being beholden to P&L, personally. I don't want that sort of stress in my life. I think if I were a quant, I'd need to be in research, which simply doesn't hire out of undergrad unless you are a bona fide genius. I have a lot of mixed experience in academia and frankly if I were to go get a PhD, I'd do so because I really love the research I'm doing (which I do), but I'd likely exit to academia or FB/Google/Uber AI and work on really interesting problems rather than slave away in finance. I think the stuff big tech research is putting out is way more interesting and impactful, so if I ended up doing a PhD in math/CS/stats, I'd go there instead.
So lifestyle-wise, I wasn't vibing with it. Career-wise, I wasn't either. The exit opps are pretty slim to be honest, likely would head to grad school and then big tech as mentioned above if I left. Also, unless you're at JS, if you suck you get fired quickly. I didn't like the idea of being put on gardening leave (albeit paid) so early in my career. That being said, if you're good, you can make a lot of money. The downside is still there, though.
I also want at some point to start my own company. B-school from quant is more difficult, and I think I'd like to do MBA/MS ideally (I still love math). Quant just doesn't give any business skills which I would need/want. VC/GE was just a better option from all perspectives, for me personally. More in line with my personality, desired career trajectory, strong interest in tech/startups. I also realized that I'm happy to code, do data science, and tinker on my own time.
The top market makers tend to interview a lot of people (from top 15 schools) but getting the offer is another story. There isn't really much prep you can do for these either besides knowing basic statistics. Maybe these resources can get you started:
http://isomorphisms.sdf.org/maxdama.pdf
https://www.janestreet.com/static/pdfs/trading-interview.pdf?utm_source=web&utm_medium=pdf&utm_campaign=probability_markets_guide
I'll give these a look. Thank you.
I've spent years putting together pdfs on quant trading and somehow never saw the first one - thanks man!
First of all, take for example Citadel on LinkedIn and find a proportion of people with desired job title who have a "non-target background". From my experience, getting an internship is extremely hard without going to a target school, but getting a fulltime role is very realistic if you have a decent track record (publications, hackathons, PhD even from a non-target, etc.).
Fair enough. Man, the barrier of entry is just incredibly difficult. I'll take what you said into consideration though. Thanks!
Games not over if you don't get to into quant trading at a good firm out of undergrad (as others have stated this is unlikely given your background), its just the beginning and I'd look at it that way. Get something in the right ballpark (maybe not a quant trader role with a big name hedge fund) and work from there. Ex: quant analyst without pl risk (publishing role, modeling/support role), or quant risk at a bank, and you'll have to move more towards your target job every couple of years. If people you work with will vouch you are good doors will open.
Not a bad idea.
I broke in to small systematic shop out of non-target UG building strategies. I would say 1) lower the size of shop you're looking at 2) the networking number game is your friends and 3) enjoy it enough to be value add on day one (i.e., in your spare time if you're not playing around with trading strategies already this probably isn't for you)
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