Career advice for a CS/Math PhD who wants to make money
Hi all,
I'm asking you for an advice on my future career as I am a bit lost. I'm a PhD student majoring in machine learning (did my bachelor in math/stats, so I have solid math background), and recently I started wondering what career path to choose if I want make good money by my mid 30s. I'm not saying I want to become a billionaire or something, it's just that I have a lot of friends who work in IT as analysts/coders and I don't want to spend my whole life on a 100k paid job (ok maybe with some career opportunities to become a senior engineer / PM in 10 years and get paid 150-200k when you turn 40, right).
If I figured out it correctly, apart from starting your own business, for a person with my background there are basically two options: it's either to go into consulting or to become a quant. Is that correct, or am I missing something?
And also could someone explain to me the actual career opportunities for a quant/consulter, what are the career steps, what are the salaries and how long does it usually take to get promoted on each stage?
Thanks in advance!
Why don't you have data scientist on your list? It still has a high base and opens you up to work in all areas of finance (not just quant trading) as well as good number of tech companies/departments across various industries. If you graduate with those degrees and can code in Python, you'll have virtually no trouble finding employment for years to come.
A lot of research generally requires a PhD math/stats guy.
For instance, I worked in neuroscience data analytics (mainly fMRI neuroimagery data) for a bit in 2015. In the neuroscience wing, there was a dedicated math/stats guy.
His role seemed cool. He would travel internationally as well, but seemed to have his own hours and schedule with no manager, just deadlines.
Thanks for your response. That's true, however my concern was about what kind of jobs are out there that make it possible to make good money with my background in a shorter time period than those guys in IT. I doubt data scientist gets similar compensations as quants in HFs.
Well, yeah, man. Just go straight to Renaissance Tech.
I think you're underestimating the salary of a data scientist and overestimating the salary of a quant. Besides, a data scientist is going to have more flexibility to do things beyond finance. You may not think that's important now, but, as your career matures, that will be something that you are going to want.
Top tech companies usually comp PhDs coming in as Software Engineers/Data Scientists at ~$200k all-in (base + bonus + vesting RSUs). This rises to $300-350k pretty fast and even higher depending on stock growth or if you can get the staff engineer level promote.
If I was good at CS and Math, I would make a computer program that took all the fractional cents of my company's daily transactions into separate offshore shell account that I could access. The point is that the amount of money would be so small that nobody would notice, but based on the number of transactions the money would accumulate significantly.
No idea about consulting. I assume you mean some kind of technical consulting?
"Quant" has become a very loaded word in the last decade or so. There are "quant" jobs at nearly every financial institution (central bank, investment bank, commercial bank, fund, insurance, prop shop...) but not all of them have the same types of career trajectory or earning potential.
I would advise you to read this document by the late Mark Joshi: http://www.markjoshi.com/downloads/advice.pdf</a">http://www.markjoshi.com/downloads/advice.pdf
Typically a bank's hierarchy is as follows
Analysts (BS/MS grads start here) Associates (PhD grads start here) Vice President (Director/SVP) - not all banks have this Managing Director
Note that the below is for a front-office quant team, directly working with the trading desk. Risk quants, or those quants not working directly with a revenue-generating trading desk will have different pay and possibly even different titles. Also pay scales widely vary between banks, by year, by desk/team, by alma mater etc. This is based on my impressions.
At a investment bank in a front-office quant role, generally coming out of a PhD program you would be hired as an Associate. Base varies wildly but likely 100-120k. Possibly more, depending on negotiations, how badly they need to hire people, team budget, etc. Bonus also varies wildly. I think entry level PhD quant comp at a bulge-bracket is generally around 150k-180k all in. Of course that could mean 100k base + 80k bonus or 120k base and 30k bonus - really depends on the group.
Generally you spend ~three years as an Associate. Note, banks distinguish first-year, second-year, and third-year associates rather explicitly and there are salary bands at most places. By your third year you will probably be making around 150k-160k in base and probably high 100's/low 200's all in.
After three years when you make VP your salary will probably be bumped a bit, and this title is where there is a wide range of salaries and seniority - you have people who just became VPs and are making similar salaries to senior Associates, then on the other end you have those who have been VP for 10 years and are probably making salaries closer to (or more than some) Directors. So all said, consider 150k-300k to be within reasonable salary range for a VP.
The VP to Director/Executive Director/SVP (for banks that have this level) progression is a more political one than the one from Analyst->Associate or Associate->VP. Again people can be Director for a loong time, so let's say the range is 180k-400k. This can take anywhere from several years to much longer, (or never).
Finally from Director to MD it can take anywhere from several years to much longer (or never). Same thing applies, a wide band of salaries. At most places this is the highest title, so there is a huge difference in salary between someone who manages a "small" team (20-40 people) and the global head of Markets (manages 5000-10000 people). Let's just say 300k+ up to $xx million.
Obviously there are other firms out there but investment banks are the most regimented.
A PhD specializing in a highly sought after subject getting 150k-200k base + 80-100% bonus from some hedge fund (so $300-$400k all in) is rare but not unheard of.
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