Those Who Think S&T is Doomed: Back Office or S&T?
Making a transition internally to S&T from Back Office and I'm actually quite excited to work in a space that is intellectually stimulating and tracks the markets. I find learning about the various products, particularly in Fixed Income, to be fascinating.
That said, the elephant in the room is how many people view S&T as a dying space, whether it be because of automation, regulation, saturation, etc. All this talk on this forum and in other places has made me worried that I've foregone a promotion in BO to start over as an analyst in S&T for no reason, and that I've made a mistake. Sure the pay will be better in the near-term, and I find the work to be far more interesting, but what is that all worth if I'm out of a job in 10 years?
So I ask those who hate S&T but simultaneously have been groomed for FO Finance since they rode home in their friend's recently divorced dad's Porsche from soccer practice: Back Office or S&T?
S&T every single day. I wouldn't second guess yourself in the slightest. BO is always waiting for you if you want to go back (not sure why you would though). I say this as someone who has been on both sides.
As an aside, people have been predicting the death of S&T for a long time now. I would take that talk with a giant grain of salt.
The big hits for S&T have already happened (total S&T employees on the street is probably down >50% compared to 2008), and the remaining business isn't going to be automated away anytime soon. If anything, the introduction of automation and reduced headcount makes it easier for you to stand out / overperform if you can manage to properly automate your workflow.
One would assume that the types of technological changes which reduce the headcount for S&T would hit MO and BO even harder. Definitely take S&T.
Holy shit - is it that bad over in us/emea????
Here in asia s&t is still very highly sought after, and comparing s&t to bo would be totally ridiculous
While S&T is not rainbows and butterflies I think negative sentiment towards S&T on this site has become heavily exaggerated vs reality. Based on what I have seen in North American recruiting there is no way that BO has become a more desirable role than S&T, even at the worst banks.
Dude, you want to be in a profit center not a cost center - take the s&t role all day - Even if it doesn’t work out being in the front office gives you moves (to the buyside, other front office roles etc) - would think a back office (cost center) faces many of the same risk in terms of automation and maybe even more on the obsolescence side(blockchain tech etc)
Any tips on that bo—> S&T transition? Been struggling to do the same despite doing everything I can think of. Bo is soul-crushing…
I see you have the Sales and Trading title now... did you make the switch? Otherwise happy to advise my path.
Sad this is even a question. S&T without a doubt.
Would you rather be a 1st year Analyst in S&T or an Associate in Project Management / Internal Consulting at a bank? It's not so much S&T vs. Back Office as it is "restarting" that makes it difficult to swallow
Very likely s&t. Hard to say with the color provided regarding the other option.
"Back office" - doing what? True BO has largely been outsourced to cheaper countries. I assume it's more MO - managing cash, fx, project work? What makes you think S&T is intellectually stimulating? You need to learn the products in MO in any case. You're up and out in S&T and the salary is comparable to MO, you'd get a larger bonus though.
I was in Project Management working on large-scale initiatives covering the markets. Most of the mandates came from the OCC so regulatory in nature. It didn't require much of any expertise on products, just kind of knowing how shit works at the bank, being able to navigate the system, working with huge data sets / project plans, interacting with stakeholders, running some basic metrics, etc.
I don't know how S&T isn't intellectually stimulating, particularly on some of the more esoteric Fixed Income desks I'm interested in. Had a bunch of very interesting convos about those desks, and there are a lot of nuances that I'm still combing through and consistently need to review. Something tells me you're about to tell me otherwise though
Digital Assets/Cryptocurrencies are going to help keep S&T afloat for even longer. Prop shops are starting to break in and provide liquidity, banks are trying to get involved etc. Whenever a new asset comes out and there aren't enough market-makers or isn't enough liquidity there's going to be a rush to capture any arbitrage opportunities. Right off the top of my head I can think of use cases mainly in prop shops - HFT cross-exchange arbitrage, DeFi AMM arbitrage, ETF/ETPs arbitrage (Flow is doing this in Europe right now). From an S&T perspective - exotic option pricing, futures pricing and trading, perpetual swap trading, basis-trade (long spot short future wait until expiry for basis to contract and take a riskless profit) basis-widening trade (short spot long future stay delta neutral and wait until basis widens to close). In all of those trades you can see how someone is making a market and pricing. Also given that Hedge Funds and more specifically Family Offices are tripping over each other trying to get access to some of these OTC services that only a few regulated counter-parties provide (Galaxy, Genesis, NYDIG, BlockFi on the cryptonative side of things) there's going to be a large demand for digital asset traders on certain desks, however unlike 2017 I don't think Goldman or MS or whoever opened the desk in the bull market is going to be shutting it back down. Too much institutional/retail demand.
Interesting, I’d tend to agree. Any thoughts on how to angle oneself for one of those seats? I know my BB is looking to build out a crypto team / leverage blockchain, any products that would be transferable? I’m tempted to say FX but I’m not sure how applicable it is given the nuances of crypto
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