Looking for actual HF feedback.
CONTEXT: Long-time scroller, first-time poster. 25. M. LCOL city. 3.5 GPA from a non-target. Pretty sure I am somewhere on the spectrum so I need constant intellectual stimulation. I did a poor job networking during undergrad. I don’t mean for the tone of this post to come off as too jaded, but see previous statement regarding spectrum. Doing essentially an FP&A/Biz Dev role at a PE-owned ShitCo. In 1 year with the ShitCo, I have completely transformed their garbage ERP system, given them dozens of investment-banker-caliber financial models, and revamped a bunch of their shitty accounting processes. I am definitely working too hard for my comp.
QUESTION: I have been doing some interesting data science work on Global Macro idea generation. I have a Big Tech caliber GitHub portfolio, but not comfortable sharing here yet (have some more ideas I want to explore/model/understand and need to clean up my formatting). What I am looking for actual industry advice on is how many HF recruiters would even be open to my kind of candidate profile for a Quant role? I know no IB/PE/Econ PhD on my resume will be a tough sell, but my working thesis is that the quality of my GitHub work (combined with some additional certifications on my resume) would be good enough to catch a lower-level shop’s attention. And my elevator pitch to the recruiters would be that I can give them IB/PE/Econ PhD quality work at a 5-10% discount to current market wages. If my resume gaps are a bridge too far, it’s fine. I just want to have the feedback and actively manage my portfolio until I can retire off of it.
Quant roles would probably be a no. You lack a key component: Research. For any alpha based role, or really anything past tool making you need research as a background. The scientific process is really the foundation of most QR work. Quant trading, you don't have the background for. Also, for any quant role, IB/PE is useless, econ PhD is a maybe dependent on what the person researched, but most will come from strong undergrad, a few select top masters(and a lot of 4+1 students in here), or a STEM PhD. Maybe a few coming from FAANG too.
I'm not really sure where your models and such actually lay to give real advice. If your modeling is more along the traditional finance lane of 3 statement LBO or DCF models, then you're never going to be seriously considered for a quantitative role. If you have a lot of modeling experience for more quantitative stuff, like pricing, risk, etc. you might be able to network your way into model validation or risk.
Quant funds don't care about how much they pay you. They'd pay out the ass for someone. That's not what they care about. What they care about is not losing money. Trusting someone with models that control millions of dollars in flow is a really risky move. So, they only do so with people they can absolutely trust. No quant fund would ever buy this pitch because they could care less about salaries. They only care about your ability to A) Make money and B) not lose money.
My suggestion to you generally is to go back to school. Get a masters in math or stats from a solid school. From there, middle office quant roles will be open and pay significantly more than you're currently making.
Thank you for your detailed feedback. Agreed that my lack of postgrad education is probably a non-starter. I don’t love the idea of taking on student loans since I got through undergrad debt-free. But it’ll help me frame my cost-benefit analysis to make the decision.
There are some fully funded programs out there, look at those first. Also, if you can, some firms will pay for you to go to school while working. Also, state schools are not too expensive. If you're in Texas, NC, Georgia, NY, CA, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington, or NJ you have a state school that will provide enough from a masters to get into middle office quant work. It won't be alpha quant, but your background is not really good enough without an Ivy+ masters or a good PhD with strong research.
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