From academia to IB. This is what you need to know.

Coming from an academic( math/stat focus on stochastic processes) background, I joined a model risk quant team a few months back. I am fascinated by the work that is being done. In addition, I went from 62k at a medium size university in GA to 100k base at the bank in an AVP role as a rate risk quant. So I guess I am a happy banker. I do not know well enough the IB world to find out where I could be paid more or where my skills could be best put to use, but I suppose I will look into it at some point. You might as well do your homework and figure that out before you decide to switch. My understanding is that there are front office quants (quant researchers,  quant traders,...), middle office quants (risk quant for instance) and back office quants (institutional data analysis quants for instance). Note that these are just examples and depending on the particular role, these categories may not be accurate. I have published a few papers and I have a few more in the works so I am not letting go of my academic interest for SDEs. I suppose you will not do so immediately upon your switch either.

Advice to academics thinking of switching to IB.

1. IB is averse to modeling complexity while the opposite is true in academia as way to explore possibilities. 

2. Interpretability is paramount in industry while it is considered overrated in general in academia.

3. In academia researchers tend to use everything they can to solve their problems. In industry, you need to be careful not to publish proprietary bank work. I am currently writing a couple of papers on cva in regime switching markets and endogenous interest rate model calibration, while working with my manager to improve on a modified version if the sabr lmm model. I tend to incorporate many ideas I already use in my current papers at work. Unfortunately as soon as I do they become bank property and I suppose I cannot just use as I want anymore for my personal publications. 

4. Dress cleaner. At least look at yourself on the mirror before going to work. It's not academia anymore where you spent almost all your time in your office and a few minutes in front of students.

5. Programming is going to be a big part of what you will do. Thankfully I had good vba, sql, c++, matlab and even better python and R. I recently added bash scripting for a particular project. It helps even more to take a few online udemy courses in data structures, and basic computer architecture and operating systems if you lack a solid foundation in computer science.  Parallel programming is all the rage and those concepts will help you build a solid understanding of what your team members are talking about.

6. IB job security is fickle. Do not burn your bridges in academia nor do you talk down on your team members ss you do your students.  Even if you are a little bit older or more knowledgeable than some of them, you will soon discover that they are not your average student. They are very smart and sometimes smarter than you. You will learn a lot from them as well as they will grom you. If you loose your job, a former team member may hire you if they know you can help.

Please add to the list or suggest modifications if you have any additional insight.