Starting career in Fixed Income S&T at JPM/GS Dubai — what's it actually like?

Hi all — curious to hear from anyone with insight into starting a career out of undergrad in Fixed Income S&T (Sales & Trading) in Dubai, at a firm like JPMorgan or Goldman Sachs.

A few things I'd love to understand:

  • How does the Dubai office compare to London/NY in terms of deal flow, desk size, and what you actually get exposed to as an analyst?
  • Is the FI S&T presence in Dubai mostly sales-driven (covering regional sovereign wealth funds, banks, corporates) or is there real trading/risk-taking happening locally too?
  • Comp relative to London/NY (base + bonus).
  • Exit opportunities — do people move to buy-side/hedge funds regionally, or is it more common to transfer internally to a larger hub like London?
  • Lifestyle/hours compared to other S&T seats
  • How competitive/small the analyst classes are out there vs. London or NY

Would really appreciate any first-hand experience or things to know before recruiting for this specifically. Thanks!

Note: Currently studying Math at a top US university, but did high school in Dubai.

6 Comments
 
Most Helpful

Dubai-based MM HF Analyst here. Use the banks S&T for coverage. Yes, mostly sales folk covering HFs and SWFs, few traders but way less than London. Some research but light. In my experience, anyway.

HFs are expanding more in Dubai and the SWFs are massive so there's growing opportunity, also in family offices, smaller funds, and EM market coverage at some houses. But way less seats and breadth than London (I started in Ldn S&T). Depends what you want - if focusing on local clients like SWFs or GCC markets, great. Otherwise... depends your goal really).

I personally think it's a good to be due to a a growing ecosystem. But really does depend on what you want. E.g. traditional NYC/Ldn career (undeniably deeper markets) vs growing ecosystem (smaller, but personally more exciting to be in a place of growth).

 

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