Statistically happy quants, mostly, except maybe model validation

[DominiConnor]

Given that QN has a high % o students, I thought I'd share some results on how happy various types of quants are in their work, this is based upon 715 responses from our pay survey.

Very Happy 11.3%
Quite Happy 45.2%
Neither 28.5%
Quite unhappy 12.0%
Very unhappy 2.9%

For the job categories we so far have enough numbers to use, a simple scale of 5 for Very Happy to 1 for Very unhappy
Modeller 4.04
Algo Trading 3.77
Quant 3.60
Quant Developer 3.54
Fund/Portfolio Manager 3.53
Trader 3.51
Actuary 3.43
Risk 3.31
Model Validation 3.30

Within that you see that Risk and MV are pretty much the same, and at the bottom.

Once we get some more responses I'll be able to put out subtler correlations, and if you'd like to contribute to the survey confidentially follow this link

 

[Tsotne]

I think there are different criteria which makes different types of quants happy, e.g. Compensation, Flexible schedule, Pressure level, Travelling opportunities, etc. Bringing all of them in the same range, results seem quite surprising and interesting. I wouldn't expect algo traders are happier than those below.

 

[euroazn]

@DominiConnor
Actuaries are a type of quant? They both use math/stats, I suppose, but I've always seem them as distinct.

 

[PerfectSeek]

I am an actuary and don't consider myself a quant (yet). I would also consider them distinct, and vote low on the happiness scale!

 

[MSUPokerGod]

Does anyone have a link or resource I can draw on about what exactly each of these jobs entail?
Also, I'm trying to decide between USC, Claremont, and BU, any ideas about which programs best prepare for which jobs?

 

[DominiConnor]

I include Actuary because in some firms they do work that in other firms would have Quant as the job title.
The fact that I've addressed the survey to a quant audience and got actuaries replying reinforces that decision.

I cannot honestly say that actuaries in general are less happy than quants, because a bias of course is that I'm addressing a specific subset, and it seems reasonable that if you are being paid like an average actuary to do work that is the same as an average quant, you might not be too happy about it.
But there could be other reasons.
I once worked for an insurance firm, I hated it. A lot. I hated every single aspect of the firm, really every aspect, they bought my firm and it ended up with me changing careers.

 

[Tsotne]

Does anyone have a link or resource I can draw on about what exactly each of these jobs entail?

See this:

http://www.markjoshi.com/downloads/advice.pdf