career choosing: risk management vs model (pricing) valutation

so here's the face-off between 2 careers i've been looking to with real interest:

1) risk management: i like statistics and finance (i got my major and adv degree on them) and this wuold be a natural career. still i have no clues if u'r gonna live your whole life in a cubicle or not. (i expect something diff at AVP level)

2) model valutation: take a look at this http://jobs.efinancialcareers.com/job-40000000008… . i love these tasks too but i have concerns about the life in the job as be4. (i know this example isn't a good one due to the position whom is offered to)

just to make it clear, i DO NOT want to spend 80% of my time coding c++, (VBA is ok), nor get nightmares on some bad trades, nor getting a heart attack due to the pressure i'll be exposed to (so FO is not exactly my promised land).

given all of this, could you spend a couple of words on pay/hours/stress? which path would be better for me?

obviously i do know that with no details, it's definetely hard to answer this question so, should you say it, i'll try to add some other job descriptions.

3 Comments
 
Best Response

I think that the model validation/pricing career path can have a wide spectrum of stress levels. There are desk quants who work directly with traders (high stress). Meanwhile, there are model validation teams within research and risk departments that work on VaR engines, pricing models, and other programming/quant heavy material that is relatively laid back. But these are all very program-intensive positions.

As for risk mgmt, there is a fair amount of computer usage, but generally it is confined to VBA/excel, and perhaps some statistical tools like R or matlab. As you climb higher, I've met a few risk managers who rely mostly on their qualitative analysis of the markets. Very macro econ based position. So from your description, you may enjoy that a bit more.

Pay: Desk quants make about the same as the traders from what i have heard. As for risk managers, I think BB risk analysts make same base with much less bonus. but as you get to VP and above, its very decent pay for balanced work-life.

 

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