Algorithmic trader based in India. Advice for future career prospects and Education path

[rajatbansal]

Hi All,

I just came across this awesome forum for discussion. Looks like I would find answers to my questions here. I am a senior associate and team lead at an algo trading firm in India. I am 36 year old and presently, I lead a team of traders and developers . I have more than seven years of experience in HFT and overall around twelve years of job experience. Off late, I have started questioning what's next in my role and started to feel saturation in current role.

I hold a Bachelors and Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay and I am considering Executive MBA or MS in Quant Finance from US. At my career stage, I am looking more towards quant fund manager kind of roles in future. What do you think I can do to make a career leap in this field. How does a typical algo trader grows in this domain ? Is MBA a good options for fund management kind of role ? I currently manage a portfolio of around 2 Million $ and want to reach a level where I am responsible for much bigger fund size and different geographies.

Looking forward for your reverts and thanks in advance for the same.

 

[rajatbansal]

Guys! Looking forward for your suggestions and view. Thanks in advance.

 

[rajatbansal]

Not even a single reply. Is this question quite irrelevant ?

 

[Risky Business]

Sorry, I do not feel prepared to help you in any way. I would recommend you to use LinkedIn to find a profile similar to what you may look for and chat with them instead.

 

[Michsund]

I say with your experience I would go with the mba in the fact that you already have a strong quantitative base. You can do an mba in quantitative finance at Nyu stern or an mba in stats from Wharton or booth. So i would look into those.

 

[rajatbansal]

Thanks michsund. Just out of curiosity, what would be average age for mfe and mba programs ? Reason to ask is don’t want to be outlier in mba program as I am slightly over 36. Will be applying next year as almost all dates are gone for this year.

 

[Risky Business]

I believe there are really few people in this forum who have the specific experience you are looking for. Again, I would go to LinkedIn and try to find someone with a profile that is similar to what you are looking for.

 

[aleli]

Or having a PhD would help? There are more and more high level job in quant require a PhD in relevant area. Also I think 36,37 wouldn't be an outliner in the program at least it is not the case in my place. However I am curious about how to become an algorithmic trader, since my brother really want to become one he is applying for his master program and currently interested in the Msc in Algorithmic trading or computational finance offered by the University of Essex. May I have your kindly advise is it a possible way to earn his job in some Big FI since his undergraduate is Accounting and Finance the Msc will be very critical. Thank you so much Sir I hope you success in your career

 

[rajatbansal]

Hi @aleli, Thanks for your revert.

For getting job in Algo trading, one of main field is coding. You must be reasonable in coding strategies. Apart from that, you really don't need to have a very deep knowledge of finance. However, your quant and statistics should be very strong.

Your brother should consider doing some courses of coursera in statistics and coding. That would be quite helpful.

If i may ask, where are you applying @aleli ?

 

[aleli]

Thank you for your advice sir. I am not very good both in quant and coding but I think if I want to stay in finance both skill set have to be master in some extent, so for me the MFE or MSc in computational finance maybe a good choice.
For my brother case, is it the program offer by Essex may not lead my brother to an Algo job as he want? He is doing some Coursera course in order to strengthen his quant but I have talked to him, he don’t think attaining Coursera online course can pursue the employer that he got centain skill on code and quant