Q&A: IAMA Algorithmic Trader about to finish his second year
I saw someone do this on Reddit, so I thought I'd try it out here. IAMA = I am a(n) *I will not disclose where I work (or information which might identify me).
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Hey there, would you mind telling us your background? Also, did you start in algo trading or transfer from another role? I'm interested in possibly going down that route later, but will be starting in S&T in a BB. Cheers
I started right out of a college. I was a CS major and pretty much stumbled into the job. I hadn't really considered a career in finance but had been doing some trading on my own account for a couple of years. As I was looking through my school's career site, I found my current job's listing, saw they didn't want a cover letter, and sent my resume. It was the only company of this type that I applied for.
Most of the people where I work came here out of college or graduate programs. Others came from other proprietary firms and hedge funds. There are definitely some traders here who started out in banks.
Thanks for that. Do you know of any people who have come out of non-quant/CS undergrad programs, worked a couple or so years in a bank, then gone back to do a quant masters? If so, which schools (for the masters) have the greatest presence?
generally what is the bonus structure?
What exactly do you mean by this?
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Nice thread. Do you think there will come a point where algo trading will become saturated (if it isn't already)? Do you think algo trading strategies will continue to print money years from now, or is it going to hit a wall?
I think what Exclusive8 meant is: how is the amount of your bonus determined, when is it paid, and what conditions are associated with it? I've heard of some firms paying out bonuses in installments over several years, for instance. Also, I know some are based more on the profit you generate and some more on what you do to help the firm in general (e.g. develop a widely-used strategy/tool/etc.).
Are there dev/infrastructure people who mostly build the underlying systems while the traders script on top of them? How many lines of code would be typical for a strategy? How much of what you do is idea development (or is that for quants?) versus implementation versus tuning parameters on existing strategies?
i'm an econ major and math minor looking to go into trading. which, if any, cs courses should i take.? i'm don't anticipate doing anything more than a couple courses at the very most in cs. i just want to make i'm not left behind in today's computer age. i literally know nothing about cs. i'm looking to take 1-2 cs courses but am willing to take more if it is advisable. i just want to make myself literate with computers and any cs related tas for a future job in the financial world.
so which of the following cs courses should i take (from lowest # to highest #)? intro to computing, integrated intro to computation and problem solving, elements of computer science, principles of program design, introduction to computer systems, mathematics of computation, programming languages.
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