Research vs Trading and desk comparison

Hello WSO, This is my first post!

I am facing a decision where I do not understand the repercussions.

Electronic Trading Credit Research - BB (Quant role) Electronic Trading Equities Research - BB (Quant role) Electronic Trading FX Strategist - BB (FO role)

I do not understand the repercussion of taking a quant research role in a particular market vs going into front office directly in another market.

Probably the compensation will vary a lot (more bonus in FO), but are these markets so different?

If you ask whats my ideal career progression? I would love to become a risk taker and I truly do not understand which of these paths could lead to a better risk taking position.

My 2 cents on each: eCredit : The Credit markets are interesting, very quant in nature, and doing MM/eTrading there could be interesting, however, as this is a research role, there is the Chinese wall where I would work with traders but not be one (yet).

eEquities: I believe it is the most interesting market, since it has exit opportunities to HFs (mostly quant HFs which all my interest lies). However, still it is research.

eFX: This is actually a FO role, so being part of the FO team and a strategist I could gain trading experience but don't know how much I would gain from this to transition into a more risk tacking position. This is more HFT oriented but also MM.

I would appreciate a lot your inputs!

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