Calling All Quants Working in Australia - HELP PLEASE!!!

[Aussie]

Hi All

I was looking for some career advice to become a Quant in Australia. Can someone working as a Quant in Australia msg me please? I have a few questions to ask!

 

[makaveli]

Obviously Australia has a bigger financial market than New Zealand - but there are next to no 'quant' jobs in New Zealand (i.e jobs that would require an MFE or similar) - I don't know if the situation across the ditch is similar or not. Imo I wouldn't bother with a job in Australia - I recently turned down a job offer from Macquarie Capital Advisors (Macquarie's investment banking division) to go to Cornell - the US or European markets seem much more interesting to me personally.

But thats possibly because I've lived in Australasia my entire life and I've become pretty bored of it to be honest.

 

[tobias elbert]

In response to the OP, there is no black and white answer. Generally, yes, quantitative roles tend to be more on the risk side of things here, particularly, credit. I dont have personal experience in that area, but I don't think that most banks would engage much in exotic credit derivatives so in that sense most of the work would be in credit scoring and more of the vanilla type variety.

The job you turned down doesnt sound very quanty, I have to admit, but Macquarie are probably the investment bank here featuring the biggest quant teams. I guess, you'll find quant roles here to be predominant in smaller firms such as Optiver, Tibra, Liquid Capital (the bigger ones amongst the small) and other small quant shops/ consultancies - with the former being heavy on the trading and especially development.

There is a decent number of hedge funds around which tend to employ a very small number of people (anywhere between 5 and 20). Slots dont open very often, personally, I have only known of three of them hiring in the past six months. There may be (have been) more as they tend to hire through their networks and dont make the roles public. You stand a good chance with them if your personality is not as geeky as your skills :D.

Also, what you tend to see here (not sure if that applies to other markets as well) is that jobs are initially pitched at very, very high calibre candidates (particularly when it comes to front office type jobs) who are expected to have five years plus experience. They tend to not find the profiles they are after and then adjust the profile to what the local market offers.

 

[Jagan.gvs]

Hi guys, any updates to this thread. I am planning to enroll in a mathematical finance program in Australia. However, I am not able to make out the profile of the students who got admitted in the recent years, placement / recruitment statistics like job profile, median salary, whether help is available from Univs in finding a job.

Also, I believe Citizens / Residents are eligible for Commonwealth Support for fee concession / waiver.

 

[jimmy_b]

I am also in Australia and am looking to do the MSc Quant Finanace at UTS in order to pursue the risk or credit quant analyst roles. I have the following questions about these roles in Australia. I assume the working conditions are different to the US or Europe.

- what hours do you typically work? What can happen to cause you to work longer than this?

- is there some flexibility on hours?

- what proportion of your day is spent thinking/planning, coding, meeting clients, giving presentations etc.

- do you share much with the academic world for example attend conferences?