Bank vs Family office (with salary)

I am woking as a FO quant VP in a big bank. I received a quant developer offer from a family office (AUM 20-30B)
 

  • current Quant role at bank: TC in the mid 200k

  • quant dev at family office: TC in the upper 300k

(Both have same base salary)

my current job is more about building pricing libraries and tools for trading. The offer is a quant dev role in the tech team in the family office, so it is less like a quant and more like a software engineer. I am doing well in my current job, like the teammates and atmosphere, not much stress, high job security, but the salary is not high. 
 

the family office does not have a lot of people (i.e. just a few hundreds) Would it be risky to go to such a small firm? But the AUM is not too bad.
 

ideally I would like to have a job where I can do both modeling and dev job, but this role is only dev, no modeling. On the other hand, I am not sure if I can get any modeling job because I don’t have a phd degree. 

should I take this offer? Would it close my door coming back to banks in the future if I didn’t like it?

I will really appreciate if anyone can give me some advice. Thanks!

2 Comments
 
Most Helpful

Moving from a large BB to a smaller firm has inherent risks, however you should look at your comp progression over the next few years, as opposed to right now. Will you be making more at the BB down the line if you stay? Perhaps better opportunities will pop up. The delta is huge, but you should also keep in mind that the bases are similar according to you. Personally, I don’t count money that’s not in my pocket yet (that’s just me)

Another dimension to consider is resources. Some ppl take the resources their banks have for granted until they move to a smaller firm and realize it involves them going into the trenches more. This is just my general advice, I genuinely have no idea what you do and I’m sure you’re much smarter than I am

 

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