When GS describe what they look for in an algotrader they specify more education, more applicable maths and C++ than you have.
You're a British CompSci grad, you don't know C++
Please don't tell me how good Java is, I may vomit.
MS seem to be splitting off their prop trading bit, so if you're in the wrong part (the most likely case since prop is smaller, your chances are very low). AT is less of a focus for them than other large firms, don't know why they've never told me.
@ JPM your odds are better since their algotrading is more IT-style technical, but not much because as above you have a UK CS degree. Have you done FPGAs, GPUs, or C++ ? Threads ? Did the nasty man tell you that your Apple had an operating system in it ? Did you try to hack it ? Why not ?
I'm actually quite serious in that last part.
Good ATs are people who do stuff to computers, and regard things that stop them as bugs/interesting puzzles, not rules.
Although there is a decent number of people with just first degrees working in algotrading, the supply/demand is horrible there. I know you've done supply & demand because a depressing % of the Oxford "engineering" degree is often economics.
Sadly algotrading has little to do with classical economics, which pretty much says it can't work, or indeed mainstream quant finance. Which is why a large % of what you'd learn as a quant developer won't help you too much in algotrading.
Since you seem to think I care what large firm you're at, you've spread yourself so I have no better information to recalibrate my numbers. They are different at each bank, but the thing about an average is that it is an information destroying function. Have you done hashes ? It's one of them.
Anyway, it's the wrong question.
The right questions are:
1: Can I be to be an algotrader ?
2: How do I increase the odds ?
The current odds themselves are irrelevant because they don't affect your decisions.
Yes, you can be an algotrader.
But you will need to learn stuff.
First you need to learn how to program, since I'd be actually be quite surprised if you could. Then C++, which will be hard, a) because it's hard, b) because your lecturers have avoided 'hard' so it will come as a shock for you.
Then you need to understand probability from Bayes to Taleb, and Shannon, please tell me you know Shannon's stuff ?
In theory it is possible that you've done DSP, or at least seen it done, that has considerable value. If as an engineer you don't know what DSP stands for, then I negate my assertion you can do AT.
Even if you've done it, you haven't done enough.
Then you need to learn some time series analysis /econometrics.
You won't enjoy that.
Some of those things might be part of your work as a QD, or it might not. Hence my blunt refusal to extend my 10-15% range.
What won't be part of most QD jobs is trying to work out how to turn maths into money. There are plenty of financial time series to be found on the web, there's a link to some here on quantnet.
Try to work out how to make money from them.
You will fail.
The journey is the reward.
You will learn that forecasting will never give a 100% confidence, and that Kelly critierion is useful, but that it will also kill you.
You will notice that bid/offer spreads can destroy most trading ideas, and that if you apply enough curve fitting techniques, all data sets look predictable. One guy showed me quite genuinely an FX forecasting strategy that arctan() in it.
You will also get some idea about real world risk.
Also market microstructure can be useful, and so will something else.
No, I don't know what it is.
AT is a creative process. Michaelangelo was an expert not only in the physical characteristics of marble, but could explain in some detail how it should be taken from the ground, and which quarries might give the stuff you wanted for a given purpose.
Although necessary, that didn't make him a great sculptor.
He had ideas.
You need to have some of them.
If during this process you never waste time trying some essentially mad off beat techniques, just to see what it does, then you just ain't the right sort of person for this work.