Quant vs Quantamental in career advancement

I'm currently thinking of making the switch into hedge funds. I have a background (PhD level) in machine learning but also have relevant experience and background in biotech/pharma. I want to ask for advice regarding what the career prospects are for a pure quant role vs a role in a more fundamental oriented hedge fund but with focus on building out a quantamental platform.

Main aspects to consider:

1/ career progression; how does compensation rise

2/ opportunities to go out on my own and raise funds

3/ are there any hedge funds that have a quantamental approach, similar to what coatue does but for healthcare?

 

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The issue with "quantamental" is that it's kind of a new thing so it's very difficult to answer your question. I work at a pure quant shop but have spoken to headhunters and more senior quant folks regarding quantamental opportunities. The biggest issue with quantamental is that as the resident quant, you are kind of a side show. Maybe the PM/analyst will listen to you, maybe they won't. In many cases, fundamental firms are hiring quants to check a box for client reporting purposes rather than because they actually believe in quantamental.

I would not recommend going straight into a quantamental role from outside of finance. There are lots of nuances to equity data and financial data in general that are best learned at a purely systematic investment firm. It's great that you have a phd background in machine learning and that will obviously come in handy but I think ML folks outside of finance tend to have a lack of appreciation of how difficult stock level data can be to work with. It's easy to make mistakes if you haven't been made aware of the many pitfalls of equity data. You can always move to a quantamental type role later. Difficult to go from quantamental to pure quant.

 

Quantamental just seems like rebranding to me of old ideas and perhaps adding in some new techniques (bigger data sources)

There’s a guy who wrote qb options book that said every trader is a quaint trader and he’s right. Even traders who do not sure some kind of quant system are still filled with math types running some kind of probability and risks reward analaysis.

Same thing with hedge funds and quantamental. Fundamental guys already incorporate this. Maybe it adds in some factors to help with market timing.

 

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