MFE got us all excited, it can't just be a goldmine, right?
People with advanced degrees in physics, math, and engineering had to make a living and couldn't do it in their original disciplines. Wall Street discovered a use for these nerdy types -- if for no other reason than that they could put a patina of intellectual respectability on the rubbish Wall Street was peddling. I also don't think FE is "science" -- in the same way that I don't think economics is a science; economics may be dressed up in the language of math but that's just to camouflage its intellectual poverty and to provide some sham intellectual respectability.
To be a science there must be certain core principles -- in mechanics, it would be laws of conservation of energy, of momentum, and so on. It must be possible to develop a rich theoretical structure on such principles. And the structure must not only explain disparate empirical phenomena but also non-trivially predict new ones (e.g., the existence of Neptune, or existence of radio waves). By these criteria, classical mechanics, electrodynamics, statistical physics, general relativity, and quantum mechanics are all science. FE, on the other hand, is based on ad hoc assumptions and principles, and for all sorts of other reasons -- non-repeatability of experiments, non-predictability of new phenomenon -- cannot emulate real science.
But this is all irrelevant. People drift to FE in order to put food on the table and pay the rent. We have to eat as well and can't just engage in idle philosophical debate about what is or is not true science.
You put it along the ways I was thinking. I am for not a single moment arguing whether we should be doing it or not, all I am saying is quant finance it is not science. There is a lot of "art" in it.
I'm thinking about moving from Maine to NY to try my hand at quant work and would appreciate your thoughts about whether I could land a job. I have a PhD, but it's not in mathematics - it's in a natural resources field. The dissertation was pretty quantitative, though - a lot of spatial statistics. Undergraduate training was not in finance either, unfortunately. I'm a professor now in a mostly non-quantitative area (public policy), and direct a research center with "finance" in the title, though we don't do anything Wall Street would care about (it goes by "environmental finance"). I'm Excel savvy but have never done VBA or C++ or Java programming.
I saw a bunch of entry level quant jobs on this network but they all seem to require something I lack, most usually the programming bit. Do you think I could take a few online certificate courses in C++ and Java and be competitive for one of these jobs? I'm 40 now and have a ton of awards and senior management experience, some in the private sector, but again probably not stuff that makes me competitive for these jobs. I'm ready to try something completely different and move to the big city if I could land a job.
... so yes I'd be competing against younger folks for jobs from the 'young blood pool', but what do you think of Andy's idea about specialty shops and other niche applications?
... to your question about the frying pan: eventually a big career shift is in order for many people. So it is for me now. I'm trying to build up my skill set and leverage my way in to quant life. I recognize it will take time. Do you really think it's pointless? Any other perspectives out there?
... Isn't there also always the chance that some quant employers will perceive value in a list of other significant accomplishments? Kind of like military training can impress employers that the candidate has a spine and discipline - but in this case that extraordinary accomplishments from other fields can show a capacity to excel and make them money?