Career switch advice

[jabran]

Hello Guys,
I am thinking of a career switch and would like have some advice before I take a decision about the next steps.
To give you a quick summary, I am a network engineer having ~4 years experience in IT & telecomms industry(along with Telecomms engineering degree) and currently earning £50k+ here in london working for one of the biggest networking companies in the world.

For quite some time, I am developing some interest in financial engineering/quantitaive finance and have done quite a lot of reading about this. So basically, being a computer networks engineer, this is going to be a start from scratch from the point of view of programming, investment banking & finance and mathematics.
So the questions I have are :
> I see there are multiple routes to learning this, i.e. financial engineering degree's, certificates in financial engineering etc, which path should I follow considering the fact that I am going to have start from scratch ?
> In the finance/IB world, how much the degree/accreditation of univeristy is important ? For example, if I talk about IT here in UK, employers are more interested in technical skills that the degree and as I am going to be an international student here in UK so I need to take into account higher fees for MSc programmes in universities.
> How much of self-study can play its role while I learn the programming and IB skills ? For example, I believe I can gain C++ skills by reading the self-study books, is that the case with other required skills as well such as IB knowledge etc ?
> The way I am going to plan this career switch is that, I will start learning all the required skills in parallel to my current profession and continue this for the next 2-3 years and then start finding a job relating to Quant. What sort of salary should I expect as a starter assuming I have gained reasonable skills in the 2-3 years of study ?

Thanks in advance !
Kind Regards,

 

[jabran]

any ideas please ?
any advice will be greatly appreciated !

thanks

 

[Connor]

I agree that in regards to programming, self-study is the way to go in your case. And I would suggest a financial engineering degree over a certificate (this is a personal opinion, I have no actual info on this).

In regards to what programme/university, the best one you can get into. The brand name of your university is still important. That being said there are some good universities in London.

London Business School has a Masters in Finance and although it doesn't solely focus on FE, there are a number of FE focused electives. Imperial College London offers a MSc Risk Management and Financial Engineering and a MSc Mathematics and Finance. And the London School of Economics has a MSc Financial Mathematics.

 

[jabran]

Thanks Connor

Guys - Any ideas about my salary question ? Lets say if I go for a good FE course and learn good C++ skills in the next couple of years, what sort of salary expectations should I have have in my first quant role ?

Thanks again
Jabran

 

[Andy Nguyen]

It's hard to tell what happens in a couple of years but you should expect to get the same salary as what you have now. Bonus, sign on bonus, etc are unknown variables.
Don't expect to double your salary when you change a career and get a first entry job. If anything, you may get more money staying at the same job and receive annual raise.

 

[jabran]

PhD

Thanks Andy.
I have one more question please. How important is PhD in becoming a senior level quant developer ?
Is it a must have in this profession or it can be compensated with good knowledge and experience ?

Regards,

 

[mkheidzedavid]

Many senior quant position can be satisfied with MBA finance, stat, physics, math or related fields and 7-10 years of experience. But most of the time (about 95% of senior quant jobs) require a PhD degree

 

[kashili]

If you are looking for 'quant developer' role, look for CMU/Tepper kind of syllabus, I guess..(dont know much about UK). I am an IT guy and I am not biggie on CMU, because I am looking for broader level of skills (not just expertise in c++, at the cost of SAS/Matlab).
Again, are you talking about quant developer role in research phase, where SAS/Matlab is just enough, or are you talking about quant developer role in production, where c++ is defacto.
If you are not 100% sure about what part of quant-finance you want to pursue, look for colleges with lot of electives.
I myself am looking into all these aspects


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