Quant Salaries?

[JDawg]

What are the salaries + bonuses like for the different kinds of quant positions? Not just entry level, but also 3-5+ years down the line. I'm particular interested in roles like:
1. Quant Modeling
2. Quant Developer
3. Quant Trader
4. Anything else quant related

I realize that quant roles are broad and there's a lot of variability (eg. Front/Middle/Back office, working at a BB/hedge fund/prop shop), so any info is welcome.

I'm an undergrad trying to figure out what I want to do with my life (quant vs trader? if quant then what kind of quant?). My impression is that entry level quant salaries are around 70-100k + sign-in & relocation + 5-10% bonus. Someone told me that if you're good, you can easily make 300k/year in 2-3 years as a quant. To me that sounds too good to be true, unless you're ridiculously smart and have a math/cs/stat PHD from Princeton or something. Was this guy just pulling that figure out of his ass?

And please spare me the "don't worry about salary, do what you love" bullshit. This is the financial industry. I'm just a college student and have no idea what I want to do career-wise besides make a lot of money while doing reasonably interesting work. Salary is obviously a factor in my decision.

 

[ThinkDifferent]

I know nothing about algo / high frequency stuff etc.

Derivatives pricing quants make:
FO: Associate (0-3 years exp) 90K-120K base, VP (>3 y.) 140K - 180K base.

Bonus varies a lot, but usually from 50% to 100%.

MO (model val): Associate 80K - 110K base, AVP 110K-130K, VP 130K-170K.

Bonus varies less, usually about 25%-50%.

These number are based on what I have seen. Sample pool is about 20 people, mostly tier 1 banks.

 

[JDawg]

Thanks a lot for the info ThinkDifferent.
I plan to get an MFE right after I graduate. That means that after the MFE I'll get placed into analyst roles rather than associate right? So I'll have to be an analyst for 2 years before I get to the associate level (thus where you say 0-3 years exp for derivatives pricing quant, that's 2-5 years for me)?

 

[ThinkDifferent]

I don't know any quants who started as analysts. Also all those people have PhDs. To be honest never met MFE guys in my life lol I am old shool

 

[JDawg]

What kind of grad schools did most of those PHDs come from? Since we're talking about quant roles, I'm sure pedigree isn't as important as it is in, say, investment banking, but finance is notoriously addicted to prestige so I'm curious.

 

[ThinkDifferent]

This is not particularly important. Having degree from a top school may help your CV to stand out and get you a shot at an interview, but to get through an interview for a quant position requires brains, experience, and preparation, which PhD holder from some particular school may not necessarily have

 

[roni]

I also noticed that some PhD holders (not necessarily from top schools) get into an MFE program, and most likely land a job as quants...
Read through the class profiles of NYU/Baruch/CMU/UCB MFE programs.
Another thing that I noticed was that students, who already have an advanced degree and/or a couple of years of full time experience, get very good quant related jobs.