Need Help! Optiver Execution Research Role (Quant) vs FAANG

[funnynotfunny]

Hi all,
I'm a final year CSE integrated Bachelors + Masters from one of the premier engineering institutes in India. I currently have a Quant Researcher offer for the Execution Research team in Optiver Amsterdam. I also have an SWE offer from a FAANG in India. While the Optiver role is significantly higher paying at the moment, I have no idea about future prospects, and so need help deciding between the two.

For some background about myself, I've done internships in SWE and Deep Learning research. Have no finance experience. Very little data science work (was more into competitive programming). Stats/math background limited to basic engineering courses. Have done some ML

Pointers along any of these lines would be helpful.
1) What kind of skills and experience can I expect to learn from the execution research role? Given that it seems to be a specific domain even within trading, will these skills be transferable if and when I move to other firms? Might this role possibly be a dead end?
2) What kind of different career paths could both of these roles take me through? - responsibilities, compensation, maybe higher education (maybe an MBA), location (assuming I want to return back to India)
3) For a person from a primarily CS background, is it a good idea to get into a quant role straight from uni? Does it restrict my options compared to a SWE role? Can I go back to a SWE role (or tech in general) after a quant role?

Thank you

 

[tentnauq]

Take everything I or anyone else says with a grain of salt. But here are my thoughts.

1. I imagine execution research involves modeling market microstructure, i.e. how orders are executed. It is certainly narrower than SWE, but plenty of trading firms and banks are interested in execution.

2. From SWE you can move to management or stay in a technical role. There is not much of a career as a quant in prop trading. You just become better and earn more money. There is more hierarchy in banks, but it is very political at the top.

3. You can absolutely go back to tech, but at a junior level and the pay difference can make it very hard. Conversely quant opportunities at the top firms don't come very often. After a couple of years in tech, you may find your options limited in trading.

 

[ShailP]

@funnynotfunny I would opt here "Quant Researcher offer", there will always be opportunity to go in FAANG if you choose so in future. Prop trading or hedge fund quant research role doesn't come often, based on my experience although I am not QUANT myself, but I work with traders and quant developers/quant researchers.