Career in Quant Development - Accept IB Tech offer or look for Quant Dev specific jobs?

[Mithra]

Hi, I'm wondering whether anyone can offer me some advice. I'm a fourth-year Theoretical Physicist at a top UK uni and currently have an offer from a bulge-bracket bank for Technology Application Development. I did my internship on a trading floor on the trading desk and it is likely I'd be going back to a very similar job next year (Don't know officially until next year).

However in future what I'd really like to go into is quantitative development/QR. I've seen several adverts for grad roles named 'quantitative development', however would I still be ok just going into the front-officey straight technology job? I know that straight-off its unlikely to be quantitative at all really, I just want to ensure I don't end up getting funneled into some back-office deal processing etc! Any advice brilliant, thanks.

 

[goldmanta]

I'm in a similar situation as you - bulge bracket entry-level application development. My impression of the firm was that they were open to having entry-level hires explore whatever it is that they wanted to do. This seemed to be true given that you'll be working on projects for the team.

I won't be a part of the front office like you, but I will be doing interesting enough stuff in the middle office by interacting with all of the front office groups. I think what's important is to be a kickass developer for your official responsibilities while at the same time going to work a little earlier and leaving a little later so that you can take on extra responsibilities/opportunities in areas that you think will help your career.

What I've gotten out of quantnet was the fact that titles really don't mean anything. If you're implementing a part of a machine learning algorithm for one of the PhDs in your team, does not having "quant" in your job title prevent you from being a quantitative developer? The general view here is that even having "quantitative developer" as your title could actually be very misleading - a senior analyst developer at the desk could be more so a quant than a back-office "quantitative developer" whose transforming data the entire time.

You have an excellent opportunity and I think you're better-off networking your butt off in that firm and organically becoming a full-blown quant developer/researcher. There are a lot of people who would rather go the route that we're taking than to take 1.5 years from work just to attend an MFE program and then become a 'quant'.

 

[Ostroff]

I kind of agree with @goldmantra . I think once you are in you can go for many different roles and jobs within the firm (provided they are tech oriented). It is just the matter of showing enough enthusiasm and persistence as well as aptitude. I am in a similar position and have the same worried. Ultimately I would want to end up in a quant development role at a hedge fund. So I naturally worry whether I will gain the skills needed and the coding pedigree to get into roles like that if I go for a bulge bracket firm right after school. But then again.. those seem to be quite sought after jobs (big firms ones) so there must be lots of good things to it besides the prestige alone.