Intern at S&T BB vs Technology at Man Group (for quant trading career prospects)

Hello all,

Little background about me: Studying undergrad Maths at top UK uni (penultimate year), aiming to break into quant finance firms (prop trading/market making/quant hedge funds) for quant trading type roles

Got through to mid/late stage interviews with a couple of prop trading firms for summer internships but didn't get either offer, not expecting any others.

Received summer internship offers for:

I have no finance background or previous experience, however have software/tech experience through a couple of start-ups, and struggling to deicde between these offers.

As I see it, pros of UBS would be to gain finance background, cons being I have no plans to stay there and isn't at all technology focused or mathematical. Pros of Man Group are more technical and could possibly work under AHL (systematic strategies) division, but possible chance I'll end up working on project such as data dashboard or infrastructure and not something directly trading/algo/quant analysis-related.

Any advice? Thanks in advance!

(Both offers in UK by the way)

Joining a well known quant prop shop as a dev next year. I’d vote Mann Group since non-technical experience is generally considered all but useless in quant roles at my firm, but I’d try to get some feedback from a trader before making a decision 

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Most trading roles at market making firms like Optiver, DRW, Jane street, CitSec, etc. aren't all that different to trading roles at banks' derivatives/quanty desks. I know many people who have gone from BB trading to prop shop trading.

As it's only an internship, doing SWE won't really close doors for full-time roles though, so you can't really go wrong. But let's suppose you strike out in full-time applications for trading roles at prop shops. It would be better for you to have a trading return offer from the bank than a SWE return offer from Man Group if your end goal is to eventually transition into trading at a prop shop.

Thank you, that makes a lot of sense actually, would definitely prefer to have a full-time bank trading return offer that hedge fund SWE to potentially move to prop shops (in trading roles, not research) in the future, I think I'll most likely take that offer then.

need to know if you want to become quant trader or quant researcher. If former, just take anything u want. Both are solid and would get you through the resume screening for prop shops. After that it's all up to your performance in tests/interviews. If latter, go to Man Group without any hesitation. 

Well, that being said, I guess I gave you an answer lol

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