Quant Career Progression

"What does a quant career look like?" The simple answer...they are all different. The long answer has to do with understanding goals and deciding whether or not you want to stay an individual contributor or become a manager. The higher up the corporate ladder you go, the less quant work you'll do. I'm trying to do both but at times I feel like I am being torn in half.
Not to mention quants have been going into new areas like data science, crypto currency, and defi. Careers for quants aren't a simple steps 1-10.
In this video I give you some points to think about and how I wish the industry would change.
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[@79948994]

Thank for this video. I am working in a bank as risk analytics model developer, and I am facing exactly the same problem. I chose analytics because I love it, love how science combined with data tech could solve many problems elegantly. But somehow our career system (or should say, our society) doesn't really value tech people. No matter what I am doing now, non-tech? tech? data analyst? data scientist? doesn't really matter, once I stayed long enough in this career system, they just force me to make a decision: promote to management OR leave. And as you pointed already the former option - means I will let go all my tech skills. My daily job will become pure meetings, admin, coaching juniors, budgets. Man this is really hard I hate it.

[@ClassicRevive]

Great video! I hope everything works out well for you career wise

[@DimitriBianco]

Thanks

[@alicebobson2868]

in all honesty i thought that getting to the top i would be respected and be like this genius god like human being, i needed this reality check vid, and im still in uni, thanks dimitri on the informational video thats actually truthful and useful!

[@DimitriBianco]

Thanks for being a part of the channel!

[@alexander255110]

Are there high level / senior IC'S in finance? In tech, grads start at IC 4 and can go up to IC 8 or 9. IC 5 or 6 is equivalent to a junior manager

[@DimitriBianco]

For banks, no. For hedge funds I've heard of a few but it doesn't sound very common. I really wish quant finance was structured more like tech for individual contributors.

[@simplylost3181]

Im a 2nd year finance student, should i drop out from the finance program since its almost impossible for university here to allow us to switch program? I understand it will be hard for me to catch up if i were to get an MFE since finance program dosent prepare us to make the jump.

[@DimitriBianco]

If the costs (money, opportunity, time) are too high to switch you can always finish the finance degree and then apply to a business version mfe. I'm not a huge fan of them due to the lack of rigor however you can self study to get a better degree overall. Employers will also like seeing the mfe regardless of the school and you'll have a solid knowledge base. It's a tough road but possible.

[@yusufakbulut3196]

You recently had a video about trading is not quant job or something similar. Can you elaborate that a little more? Can quants would not make a good trader?

[@Capitalust]

This

[@dangkhoatrannguyen6734]

Hi I think I can help answering this. Here Dimitri kinda assumed that you have the knowledge of the industry so he wasnt clear as you hope. But he didnt say that quants cant make good traders. Just to be clear, in the industry we dont use only the word “quant” as you use it. We have quant researchers, who build models and use math/ stats, which is the closest to your definition of “quants”. Then we have quant developers, who arent necessarily good at math but have to be really good at programming to implement the model that those quant researchers came up with. And finally we have quant traders, who use all those tools created by the other two, to trade. So trader in Dimitri’s idea is this quant trader. They dont necessarily as good at math as the quant researchers, or at programming as the quant developers. But they have to have good intuition to make quick judgements on the market by using those tools. Now there are people who are good at all 3 of those jobs, which Dimitri called full stack quants. But these people are extremely rare to recruit. Now if you interview for quant researcher (like me), companies will ask a lot about math, from basic stats, brain teaser, to stochastic cal, etc basically everything under the sun. For quant developer, they will ask a lot about programming, similar to those tech interviews by FAANG companies. For quant traders, they will ask a lot if mental math, brain teasers, or even trading simulation to test your intuition. Hope this helps!

[@dangkhoatrannguyen6734]

P/s: of course quant researchers can be good traders, by understanding all the assumptions of their models, but this will also requires them to pick up quick thinking skills, something that is kind of hard to do because specialization in big firms and unnatural for people like me :) I just prefer to take my time and think methodologically, so naturally quant researcher position fits me more

[@DimitriBianco]

This video might make it a bit clearer. In general the skills are very different. Firms want true experts in one area as they know how impossible it is to find someone who can do it all. kzbin.info/www/bejne/p2fVoIGii7yKZ9k

[@oaasal]

Would you share your tips for interviewing a quant position?

[@DimitriBianco]

For an interviewer or interviewee? I mention how I interview in the video below on finding a job. kzbin.info/www/bejne/i4mzn6Rrg7mFj5o

[@josephbenjamin751]

I'm currently doing a masters in financial analystics with the modules covering most of the job requirements I've seen for a quant. When applying for jobs do you reckon they would skip on my resume because of my degree title

[@litical3719]

From the other videos I’ve watched of him, they will be more likely to reject your resume, but ofc they’ll be some that won’t ( most likely smaller firms ). He’s said that your best bet is to have some math master/PhD because quantitative finance is way heavier in the math department than regular finance. so you’d want a math degree ( physics,statistics,etc) or specifically a quantitative finance degree. So I’d switch if you specifically want a quantitative position, but it wouldn’t be impossible to land a quantitative job jus more difficult than if you had a math master/PhD.

[@litical3719]

He’s also said that academics will never prepare you for a quantitative job, in reality they just get you to the front door of the library that’s quantitative finance. Because actual irl quantitative problems require outside the box non academic solutions.

[@josephbenjamin751]

Thank you, at the moment I'm nearly finished the degree and currently thinking of starting a few projects before I go job searching. I guess my CV has to be as stacked as possible to get in. Any recommendations on projects to get started on.

[@DimitriBianco]

Litical has provided a good answer. It's possible to land a quant job but you'll really need to highlight the skills you have that directly line up with the job posting and the skills it would require (most companies don't list all the needed skills).

[@josephbenjamin751]

@@DimitriBianco thank you

[@shashankdeshpande7787]

Hey. I am a physics + systems theory double major from IIT Bombay, India (a top uni in India). I have a ton of coursework and research on stochastic control, decision theory, probability-statistics and statistical physics. I tend to love research right now and want to go for a PhD but I don't want to stay in academia for some personal family related reasons. Given my love for these mathematical frameworks, how should I go about finding the right PhD position to end up working in Quant

[@suckmyartauds]

Love your philosophy on this. I'm definitely one of the few quant types who might actually enjoy management😅 I like creating positive spaces for people to work but who knows if that's possible in corporate America !!