Career Advise

[AlgotFin]

Hello,
I am new to quant/algo trading. Most of my career (17 yrs) experience is related to telecommunications industry, however, I would like to pursue a new career in quant at this stage of my career. I have been told and re-told that its late in the game to switch career at this point, but I still would like to at least evaluate to see if I am a fit in the industry.

Some challenges that I face today are as follows:

• I have done some C programming but most of last 10 years have been mostly JAVA and little C#.
• I am a trained engineer (Bachelors + masters) by qualification but do not have a stochastic calculus background
• When I look at most quant jobs, they look into the base salary $200-500K range, however most recruiters tell me that I dont have the relevant experience. I make OK monies but not in the above range which is the main driving factor, as I think its software programming in the end (and I may be completely incorrect, so pls. help)
• The main reason of motivation is my telecom software programming background, which requires network protocol RFC implementations, stack operations, low-level socket communications, audio/video handlings, etc, which also requires some mathematical modulations (may not be similar to quant though)
• I am looking at gaining some financial industry experience and analytical modelling by reading upon financial industry markets and practicing stochastic calculus myself, however I am not sure on how much would be sufficient and well directed realistically.
• reading through this thread from Joy Pathak https://www.quantnet.com/quant-job-advice-from-wall-street-executives/ I realize that its going to be an uphill task ( and I feel more than ready for it), however, correct direction is not clear to me due to lack of industry background.

To all the knowledgeable and experienced professionals of quant software jobs, I would like to request to pls. put comments and guide me into the right suitable direction.
Is there an event OR seminar for guidance I can attend OR an individual who can help me. In Joy's post, I read about IAEA events, but still confused on what is right.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

A lot of recruiters will dismiss your resume if they can't spot the keywords in 10 seconds. Being algo trading, the main keywords would be "low latency", "high frequency", "network engineer", etc
So a lot of people in this space just happen to have the relevant and applicable skills and be at the right place at the right time. It's not that easy to train to be in a "hot field". It takes years of study/experience to require the skills that companies pay hundred/million salary dollars for.
Like everything else, there will be some new "fashionable" subfields within finance in a few years and we may/may not have algo-trading in its current form.

You should not put too much faith in the dollar figures in those jobs ads. Many ads are for non-existent jobs with inflated salary numbers.

 

[AlgotFin]

Andy,
Thanks for your quick words here, however, I did not get a clear answer from you.

Are you suggesting that with my career path, I should not look at change it because it will be difficult? If yes, then why? Isnt it programming that's required?
stochastic calculus is going to be new, but I am not unfamiliar with integral and differential calculus from my college days. So, if you are saying effort is needed, I would request you extend some of your knowledge of the field to seek some advice/guidance on the best path forward. Its just not the numbers that matter, but a deep interest in capital market as well that drives me as well.

So, pls. give some hints, otherwise, the whole thing looks all over the place and kinda confusing at times as well.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

You are right. The whole thing is very confusing outside looking in and I didn't answer your questions directly mainly because there is no standard answer here.
There is no "take this degree from this school or study these subjects" path.
Saying it's just programming like everything else is too simplistic. Besides coming up with a profitable trading strategy which is a huge task itself, a lot of things involve shaving milliseconds here and there, rewrite things at the machine/network level, etc.

From what I can gather from your post, you want to get into finance, not necessarily, quant trading. If that is the case, you can leverage your prior programming background into IT/quant developer jobs.

So just change your job search filter. Just search for skills you have.

 

[AlgotFin]

Andy,
Thanks for being so upfront with your advice. I really appreciate it. I have been able to get offers for finance jobs but I am only interested in a quant job.
I have one more request for your opinion. Being heavy with java background with low level programming involving network base and Maths involved around audio/video, I intend to enroll for a course and/or certification for quant finance / financial engineering with NYU. I have looked into the course materials and it's going to cover capital market, risk management, calculus, etc

Do you think it's in the right direction? Would I still need low level C++, R, matlab, etc? Pls. express your thoughts on it

 

[AlgotFin]

Does anyone else on the forum thinks if my last post makes sense?

 

[pplstuff]

Yes, the post makes sense.

 

[AlgotFin]

Thanks pplstuff.
On http://www.quantfinancejobs.com/ I find a lot of research oriented jobs and they mention that OOA programming needed JAVA or C++. Without C++, dealing with low-latency, what are the chances for a quant model?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I'll be skeptical of the jobs on quant jobs site because many job listings are recycled over and over. You can't verify if the job is valid but you have to send over your resume to get the process started so it's not a win-win situation for job seekers.

 

[gauravpuri]

Was going through some article . I would like to know to what other fields apart from quant, can an MSFE graduate can apply ? My concern is because the supply for quant exceeds the demand.

What is the demand of an MSFE graduate in the below mentioned fields?
1) Research analyst
2) I bank division
3) Asset management
4) Welath management
5) Hedge fund
6) capital markets
7) trading