Less Sexy Areas of Quantitative Finance

[RiemannDisfunctional]

What are the differences between quants involved in markets and quants involved in capital, credit risk, or other less spoken areas of quantitative finance? Are skills sets different? Are they both “quants” in the colloquial sense of the word? Could a career in capital easily lead to a career in markets and vice versa? What other differences between these two career areas are important to know?

 

[Peter Wagner]

It's hard to go from the "less sexy" areas to desk quant. Markets teams assume that the reason someone is working in risk/funding/non-desk is because the person couldn't land the desk quant job that is more competitive and more lucrative.

 

[Ken Abbott]

It's hard to go from the "less sexy" areas to desk quant. Markets teams assume that the reason someone is working in risk/funding/non-desk is because the person couldn't land the desk quant job that is more competitive and more lucrative.

I respectfully disagree. They are generally two different species, but I've also seen desk quants switch to risk models when the skills were needed.

 

[Peter Wagner]

Hi, Ken. Sure, I'm just saying that desk quants are likely to discount non-desk quants at face value when evaluating resumes. I see it all the time.

Peter

 

[Paul Lopez]

front office or bust isn't it?