Options/Career Advice for a postdoc in differential geometry possibly leaving academia

[ComplexAnalysis]

Hi, everyone. I apologise for my ignorance; this is my first post here, and I’ve only begun exploring the world of quantitative finance. I also apologise for mistakenly not following any of the forum rules. With that preamble, my question concerns career advice for someone with a PhD in pure mathematics and who is currently a postdoc. My PhD was in complex analysis and differential geometry at a prestigious university with a very prestigious advisor. My current postdoc is at an excellent university. I am looking at potential non-academic jobs if I fall victim to the academic job market.

If I need to leave academia by the end of this year, is there anything I should be doing now to prepare for a job in quantitative finance? How valuable is a PhD of the kind that I have? What salaries can I expect from jobs of this type, and are there better jobs out there? Unfortunately, I’m very ignorant of the non-academic job market.

I have experience in coding (with R, Python, Maple, and Matlab), and in my undergraduate studies, I took a course in stochastic analysis and an advanced statistics course. I have significant experience in analysis (functional analysis, measure theory, operator theory, harmonic analysis, and partial differential equations). Still, my main research area has been pure mathematics, relating to the Ricci flow.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Your first challenge would be to get an interview for a finance job. Without industry connection or university career service, your choice is most likely to work with a recruiter. I assume with the credentials, it's easier step.
Then you need to prep for it. Knowing the industry, which firms and which types of roles fit together would be a basic read. You can peruse the files or books from my master reading list (in my signature or search here).
After that, prep for interview, coding, brain teaser, etc.
Everyone here is going to the same process, just at different starting point and position. Your years of PhD should prepare you better than most.
Best of luck. Hang around and share with us your journey.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

The topics you mention are wonderful (I took most of them at university, I loved FA) but not directly applicable to finance IMO. But with your maths backgound, it's very impressive!

Can you program, e.g. solve Black Scholes PDE numerically ?
etc.
see random example