BB Quant Roles - Full Time at Low-Tier BB or Internship at Top-Tier BB?

First post here - hi all and thanks in advance for any advice.

I am currently employed as a MO Risk Quant in a top-tier BB in London. I have been plotting my course out of risk roles (like 99% of the people in this job, apparently) and towards more FO jobs. I currently hold two offers:

  • Full time, XVA desk strat at Barely-A-BB
  • 6-month internship, Delta-One Derivatives desk strat at Really-Top-Tier-BB, with the possibility of converting to a full time after the internship

In my eyes, going for the internship is a no-brainer, but I would like to hear some more opinions. What would you guys do?

16 Comments
 

I’d go for rates. Currently in a hybrid role where I am half quant half trader at a smaller shop. Love my job and I get paid pretty well for working 50hrs a week. XVA has always seemed like a snooze fest to me. You’ll wanna be as close to the money as you can be and that is not the XVA desk. And by money I mean P&L.

Caveat here is that with the uncertainty in the global economic outlook it might be better not to be potentially looking for a job in 6 months.

 

I feel the same about XVA tbh, I spoke to a few people I know about it and the consensus is that it's barely a FO desk.

And yeah my main worry right now is job security. It took me quite a lot of time and effort to land FO quant interviews - and this was in December/January, when the job market was nowhere as grim as it is now. Though tbf I feel like having a proper FO role on my resume, even if it's just an internship, should help in landing interviews in the future.

Another thing that worries me is that taking an internship after having a master's + full time experience might be seen as weird?? IDK probably I'm just paranoid.

 

If you're passing up a full-time job for an internship then clearly you don't have any brains.

 

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