Breaking into Quant Trading Late
-
Junior at a top 10 engineering university majoring in Industrial Engineering w/ 3.5 GPA
-
Internship working at an exchange last summer + looking to pick up a CS minor and complete before graduation since I have plenty of free credit hours
-
No previous coding experience besides the very basics
-
Math experience up to that of Linear Algebra/Differential Equations
-
Still figuring out upcoming summer internship
In terms of next steps, what should I be looking to do to break into Quant trading at a Market Maker? Should I look to pursue a masters in Computer Science, gain work experience, or do something completely different. Any advice is appreciated.
Why do you want to work in quant trading? At this stage it seems rather unlikely you would get an offer from one of the better firms and I'm not sure starting to working at a smaller trading firm is very attractive (and most smaller trading firms are not particularly quantitative). If you are really set on quant trading a masters in finance engineering might make sense although I'm not familiar with admissions for those programs or whether you would be competitive for the better programs in that field. Those programs certainly place some graduates at good quant trading firms but I don't think most graduates of those programs end up in quant trading so unless you are interested in the other positions graduates of those jobs get I'm not sure it would make sense. If you are also potentially interested in tech a CS masters could make sense as it would lead to possibilities in that direction but I'm not sure if it would make sense if you only wanted to do trading.
For non trading careers commonly done by industrial engineering graduates you will likely know better what you like and could do than I do.
Working at an exchange exposed me to so much and the one thing I gravitated towards was market makers and what powered their performance. Quant trading seems like an intellectually stimulating and competitive field that I would love to be apart of since I also love learning about the markets.
I am thinking about Masters in CS or Financial Engineering after graduation at the moment. I have zero interest in pursuing something outside of the world of Finance at the moment. Just looking for some guidance into some common next steps to best position myself moving forward. I highly doubt I could land something right out of undergrad given my experience, but willing to put in whatever work is necessary.
I would recommend trying as hard as possible to take an extra year. The vast majority of firms hire full time strictly via their internship pipeline. If you are able to do that, start prepping ASAP. Get your mental math to 70-80 on Zetamac, be able to answer any probability question you can find on AMC/AIME past exams. This should be enough for most firms; the top top firms such as Jane Street and Jump Trading will ask complex game theory questions, but those are an entirely different level of difficulty. Good luck to you sir!
Reiciendis ipsa voluptas animi dolores deserunt qui. Aut facere ipsam sit laborum. Necessitatibus voluptates et assumenda est dolores eum esse. Sed consequatur asperiores reprehenderit aut quidem reiciendis voluptatem ipsum. Voluptatum molestiae eius repudiandae maiores.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...