Making a switch from IB

I was fortunate to land a BB IB offer for next summer. However, I've been thinking of not wanting to pursue IB anymore mainly due to the hours. Had some stuff happen this year with my family so trying to do something that won't be 100 hr/week kinda thing. The money is the sole reason I chose to go into IB. I'm thinking of switching to quantitative trading at a place like Jane Street, Citadel, etc. I've seen a couple of people get 300K+ starting salaries at these places so seems like a good alternative. Also, I study econ/stats at an ivy league but haven't really had a very quantitative internship in previous summers. I'd really appreciate any insight and feedback that people would have regarding my thoughts. Thank you.

3 Comments
 
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Hey man i am sorry you feel this way. If i would you I would try to stay in IB for at least 2 years then get an Masters on whatever you want to switch. IB opens a lot of doors even in todays job market.

Quantitative trading term is used different on different companies. The top paying companies you listed like citadel, 2sigma, etc quant trading is not like normal trading, its more like programming, math models, and applications. You work closed with other quant analysts to make an investment.

However some firms label quant traders as HTF algorithm traders watches and help an algorithm make extremely fast trades and squeeze as much as possible out of the market. They don't make as much as someone in citadel as they are usually just programmers. Just a reminder tho its as stressful as IB just with fewer hours.

Try to find an alumni on your ivy who is a Quant and ask questions about the position is your best bet to understand how to get into it, thats how I got in. I am just a dev. Most quants I know are programmers, or mathematicians with PHD, hope I helped.

Cocky millionaire
 

Agreed with everything you said except that IB opens a lot of doors. It only opens doors to other fields in finance only and it won't do jack shit for quant work.

 

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