Quantitative Hedge Fund PM Career Path? boatboy's picture?

There's not really any standard title structure, it depends heavily on the fund. Many use titles like quant analyst/quant researcher/quant developer interchangeably while at other shops they are separate functions. People in research roles are usually the ones coming up with the models and testing them, while devs are the ones that actually implement these into the firm's trading systems. All of these are generally front office, but at some firms you can have quant analysts working in middle office functions like risk, so just do your research and talk with the firm to make sure you know exactly what you're getting into. As for the higher parts of the hierarchy, some funds don't use the PM title and just have a head of quant etc.

Quants also don't have as much of a well-defined career path as someone who goes into IB or PE etc. Many will have studied computer science, physics, mathematics etc and have no financial expertise. Majoring in finance isn't that important for working in a pure quant role at one of these firms - the mathematics side of your degree will definitely be more relevant here. You can get into quant funds directly from university if you stand out, while some people come from tech firms etc or sell side quant positions. The sell side can be useful as a stepping stone but be careful which roles you go for, as many roles here have quant-sounding titles but are a long way removed from the work that front office quants do.

One thing I would advise is not to pursue a PhD purely to land a quant role. This takes many years (often more than you anticipate when starting it) and isn't a guarantee of getting a job. Hope this helps.