From F1 to financial engineering?

[Lorenzo]

Hello everybody,

I'm an Aerospace Engineer, mid-30s, living in Germany and I would like to get from you some advices about my plan to switch from the Computation Fluid Dynamics to the Financial Engineering. I have been working for about 10 yrs with CFD, dealing with heat transfer, aerodynamics and turbulence modelling and I spent most of them in F1, which was really great.

I'm not in the condition to quit my current (and good paid) job to attend a full time course in a University, but I have enough hunger and discipline to study a lot, also independently, and to allocate a relevant amount of free time to it.

What would you do to step into this world? Investing 50K USD (at least) and enrolling for further education, likely with part time or distance learning formulas? Looking for an entry level job, just to learn by doing?

Thanks for your help.

Best regards.

Lorenzo

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I would say that you start with books on this list http://www.quantnet.com/forum/threa...uants-mfe-financial-engineering-students.535/
Picking a few books in the order presented and in any section of your interest. It seems like a very economical way to explore more about this field while keeping your job. Once you have a better sense on how to navigate this new world, you can decide better if a full-time program is the right choice.
As you said, a good paying job is not easy to find. It's too early at at this stage of your career to jump.

 

[Barny]

I agree with Andy. Far too early to make the jump.

Why do you want to change to financial engineering exactly?

 

[CalmEffort]

I am in a situation similar to Lorenzo, mid-30s, working in a quantitative field (machine learning and bioinformatics, mainly using R and Matlab to do statistical analysis). I have been thinking about changing to quant for a long time, and finished half of John C. Hull book. And I also need to pick up C++, which I used a long time ago.

My problem is that I don't know what C++ projects in quant I can start with to gain some experience that is really worthy to mention in resume or interview.

And I guess there are many types of quant jobs. Not sure which kind of quant job will be easier for me to get as a beginner.

Can anybody give some suggestions?

Thanks a lot

 

[Lorenzo]

Hi Andy,

thanks for your reply. I'm following your advice, exploring more in depth this field by reading some good books.

@ Barny: good point, I forgot to mention that I have been trading for a while in the FX (mostly algorithmic, I write my own code in MQL4) and stock markets with good results and, overall, constant progresses. But, apart that, I'm looking for a new challenge, in any case dealing with numbers. Besides that, long working hours, high pressure, very competitive environment, job insecurity don't scare me, since I've already experienced them.

Regards.

Lorenzo

 

[Yike Lu]

I think the biggest thing for guys like you is to better define what exactly you want. Talk to some people in quant finance and get them to explain in depth what they do. You need to get a lay of the land. Find out e.g., why C++ is commonly cited, what it's used for, what the alternatives are. The first page of Joshi's guide (in the link above) is useful, but in depth commentary is significantly more valuable.

If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.

 

[CalmEffort]

Hi Yike,

Thank you for your suggestions. You are right. It will be better for me to talk to somebody in the quant industry to see whether jump to quant is a good idea for me and how to do it.