Getting a Quant job as a Programmer / Mathematician

[Dan Sok]

Hi all,

I am a part time masters student in mathematics at a good school, graduating next year. I’ve been working as a software engineer (most recently in machine learning) for the past 5 years, while working on my masters. I have extensive knowledge in both mathematics and computing, but I found it difficult to generate any interest in my profile among recruiters and quant shops. I don’t fall in the traditional Phd to quant pipeline, or one of the MFE to industry pipelines, which is my guess for what’s going wrong. Any ideas?

-Dan

 

[Daniel Duffy]

I have extensive knowledge in both mathematics and computing,
Can you elaborate? These are very broad terms.

 

[Liam]

You need to first answer the question "why quant finance?".

Don't get me wrong - it can be intellectually stimulating, but it's not much different to ML. I've worked in both sectors and find the career stability I've had in data science to be way better. In finance, even if you work for a financial firm where the people are nice (had that once) and where you're learning, it is still a very fast moving business and you are way more prone to enduring a change in strategy that ends your role or damages your CV then other industries. It's not just people with poor communication skills or poor networks that suffer and amongst senior staff I worked with 3-5 redundancies by 45 were not uncommon. It's a shame people don't see what I saw because everybody in ML seems to want to be a quant.

So firstly answer the "why". If your story is that you actually did something that is quite involved in quant finance (and I mean pretty involved not just solved BS model etc), even if just in the MSc, and just have to be in QF, then maybe consider pursuing this. If it's based on 3rd hand information about "quant finance being more suited to you", question said information. I still get that crap from people, especially dippy graduates that can barely string a sentence together but have heard of a few terms like "fintech" or "quant", take it with a big, big pinch of salt.

In terms of how - consider open source projects to add to the CV, gearing your thesis towards quant finance and seeking out any modules in finance in your MSc. These specifics need to be communicated to employers and will do better than "extensive knowledge of maths and programming", which is too vague. That way you are selling the idea that you won't be a huge cost to train.

You need to understand the mindset aswell. It's not "mathematical coding" - whatever the actual level of coding or math you use on the job your function will always be to understand finance THEN produce work and solutions using math and coding based on that understanding. Yeah you go thru huge prep, but often the math and coding is incidental. Understand that mindset and how to express it to employers.

 

[Ken Abbott]

You need to first answer the question "why quant finance?".

Don't get me wrong - it can be intellectually stimulating, but it's not much different to ML. I've worked in both sectors and find the career stability I've had in data science to be way better. In finance, even if you work for a financial firm where the people are nice (had that once) and where you're learning, it is still a very fast moving business and you are way more prone to enduring a change in strategy that ends your role or damages your CV then other industries. It's not just people with poor communication skills or poor networks that suffer and amongst senior staff I worked with 3-5 redundancies by 45 were not uncommon. It's a shame people don't see what I saw because everybody in ML seems to want to be a quant.

So firstly answer the "why". If your story is that you actually did something that is quite involved in quant finance (and I mean pretty involved not just solved BS model etc), even if just in the MSc, and just have to be in QF, then maybe consider pursuing this. If it's based on 3rd hand information about "quant finance being more suited to you", question said information. I still get that crap from people, especially dippy graduates that can barely string a sentence together but have heard of a few terms like "fintech" or "quant", take it with a big, big pinch of salt.

In terms of how - consider open source projects to add to the CV, gearing your thesis towards quant finance and seeking out any modules in finance in your MSc. These specifics need to be communicated to employers and will do better than "extensive knowledge of maths and programming", which is too vague. That way you are selling the idea that you won't be a huge cost to train.

You need to understand the mindset aswell. It's not "mathematical coding" - whatever the actual level of coding or math you use on the job your function will always be to understand finance THEN produce work and solutions using math and coding based on that understanding. Yeah you go thru huge prep, but often the math and coding is incidental. Understand that mindset and how to express it to employers.

...and another thing.

You don't mention any particular interest in the markets. If you don't have a deep interest in the markets you're just writing code. That code could be about marketing or the production of duck eggs or infant mortality. You need to find the underlying economics of interest or your will underperform people who do.