2 offers- which one to choose?

Hello Everyone, 

I am confused between 2 offers and I would like your input in them. Both of these roles are in a big European country, not UK:

1) Quant in Trading Risk in bulge bracket bank (one of the Morgan Stanley, Jp Morgan, GS, Citi, BoFa): senior role, pretty good salary, big exposure to London team too. On the downside, it is a risk role.
2) Equity Derivatives trader in smaller Bank (think Nomura, HSBC, ING ), in the European entity of this bank: junior role, smaller salary but still ok. On the downside I am afraid of pigeonholing myself.


I have a very quantitative background (advanced degree in mathematics/physics) and the dream job is quant trader/quant researcher in a hedge fund/trading firm in London. Maybe it's even too late for me for that, but this is at least the dream. The plan is to stay 1-2 years in any of these jobs and then try either for a quant or a trader role in London. My dilemma is the following:

I know that the trader job seems more aligned perhaps, but it is in a smaller and more regional bank. Also, when I see in Linkedin, all the traders in big banks are coming from a target school and then through the grad programme of the respective banks/trading firms and not from external moves from smaller banks. For example I have not seen a senior trader going to GS from ABN AMRO, whereas for quants I have seen this happening. Also, as a quant I can prove much more knowledge from personal projects (and I have done that in the past), whereas as a trader I don't think this is so possible.

In a nutshell, I am afraid that it is much easier to pigeonhole myself in this trading position.


So, what do you guys think? I would appreciate any feedback.

4 Comments
 

I would go for the quant trasing for sure. Super do able to lateral over into a dif quant role that you may find more enjoyable. It could be tough going from derivs to quant research

 

Thanks for your comment. Just to be aligned, you mean the quant trading risk, right? I don't have an offer for quant trading, just for quant in trading risk. Also, when i say that I want to end up as a quantitative researcher, I mean quant trader/researcher in hedge funds/trading firms, in the sense that I am looking for alphas with quantitatives methods, not a quant researcher in the derivatives pricing space.

Perhaps this is what you already meant, but just to be sure that we are aligned.

 

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