Career in networking/IT vs A Quant career

[prasenjit medhi]

Hi all,

I'm new to the group and rather new to financial engineering theory. But I find it really interesting. I had my own Internet Services company in India which recently folded, primarily due to bad management and inexperience. However, as such I have a lot of IT experience, now.

I am at a crossroads as to future choice of career. The business and mechanics and theory of money and financial engineering is very interesting to me. But I have to ask, bottomline, is it worth my while now? I'm 30 years old now, to take up the Quant line, and become a guru here, or stick to networking and go down the Cisco CCNP/CCIE route(I already have a CCNA).

I have heard stories of 300K salaries(including bonuses) that front desk quants can make after 5+ years .. Is it true? Then it would be worthwhile to give it a try ..

But is it the right thing for me? I am basically a social loner who spends all his time reading the economist and other journals and who likes programming and algorithmic and logical thinking puzzles. But I'm married now and I need to provide for my wife. Cant live off of the family and my mom forever lol!

I will become a real quant guru in a year or two of study. But will I get a good job? Thats the question. Will it just be enough to show financial institutions the way to make lots of money?

How do I get my foot in the door? Going and doing a Masters in FE seems logical. How about the CFE from 7City?

Thanks,
Prasenjit

 

[John]

hi Prasenjit,

a good CCIE with 5+ experience as a network engineer, can easily make 120k (most reach this figure relatively quick in their career) and many make around 150k. That's no pocket changes. On the other hand, as you have found out, it is possible to make 300k+ in finance, but the competition for the choice job is fierce.

Anyway, the bottom line is do whatever you love to do. If becoming a quant whiz, designing intelligent, decision-making, algorithmic trading system for hedge funds and banks appeals to you, go for it!

 

[Andy Nguyen]

This reminds me of an interesting article on the Special Edition of Bloomberg Market this month. The story details how many big investment banks have outsourced their Investment Banking research to India. Instead of paying 200K-300K for an analyst in NYC, they can pay 25% of that for someone in India. And the research centers in India begin to do some quantitative analysis for hedge funds as well.

So, if your plan is to work in India, you will find more and more opportunities at home. The article mentions that most analysts there got paid 2M rupee a year....

Most of those analysts are from Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.

 

[prasenjit medhi]

Nice Post on another Quant site

Thanks for all the replies. One of the challenges of being a Quant also include the complexity and challenge of being at the cutting edge of the markets in mature, well developed and well regulated markets. India, though it has made great strides, is still a developing economy with a developing market and regulatory framework. Wouldnt the quality of the work be higher in a Western economy?

Don't mean to include this on this thread as a plug for another forum but I saw this on another quant site. Its a nice post about what Quants do, day to day.

Wilmott Forums - what is it - "quant. developer"

Its by a poster called 'Jfaqua', detailing 17 day to day Quant activities. Nice post.

Thanks a bunch,
Prasenjit

 

[John]

This reminds me of an interesting article on the Special Edition of Bloomberg Market this month. The story details how many big investment banks have outsourced their Investment Banking research to India. Instead of paying 200K-300K for an analyst in NYC, they can pay 25% of that for someone in India. And the research centers in India begin to do some quantitative analysis for hedge funds as well.

So, if your plan is to work in India, you will find more and more opportunities at home. The article mentions that most analysts there got paid 2M rupee a year....

Most of those analysts are from Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.

Here's the article:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aBrxeTBQQrWs&refer=home