Working at the Federal Reserve? (Non-NY vs. NY)

Just curious to hear about some people's experience working at the Fed. Below are a few questions that come to mind, but feel free to add any other relevant info:

  1. What exactly is the day-to-day of an entry-level role in the Markets group? Would you say it's more market-facing, trading-type work or more operations? Also, are these positions only in NY or at all branches?

  2. Does the Research group specifically focus on academic projects, or is some of the work focused on more current events?

  3. Outside of bank examining, what do common entry-level roles look like? What are some typical exit opps from the Fed?

  4. How different is working for the Fed in NY versus other major cities, (i.e. Chicago)?

  5. Any info on salary / culture?

5 Comments
 
Best Response

I can only speak to life in the Markets group. College grads get hired into the Research Analyst program, which is a 3 year program where they rotate each year into the different divisions within Markets. Markets is divided into market areas such as international markets, treasury markets, money markets etc. The broader aim of Markets is market intelligence and analysis, where the clients are the policy makers at the Federal Reserve. So that generally means following what's going on in markets, talking to banks/funds/corporations about what they think is happening in markets, and conducting data analysis. What's cool about Markets is that almost all major market participants are willing to speak with you and offer their views, and you get to use confidential Fed data. Research Analysts basically do grunt work in support of these tasks, mostly making charts and crunching numbers. It's an 8 to 5 job, no weekends, no stress, very chill and friendly atmosphere. Can't speak about RA pay, but the MBA hires generally get 110 to 130 depending on exp and all. Oh, and you get 1 day off every 20 days you work. So on top of 4 weeks vacation, you get an extra Friday or Monday off every month.

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