Is quant finance back office work?
- Thread starter Zeuge
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Joy Pathak
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The original quants were all front office. Now they are everywhere.
DominiConnor
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In describing jobs, which "office" the job is "in" has to an extent fallen victim to being a term of approval or disapproval rather than what part of the process you contribute to.
Some firms have built central quant groups which do some work that is clearly FO like HFT but may also support the work of model validation making them not only back office but behind that.
Joy is right that the first wave of quants were directly coupled to trading, indeed at that point in time risk management was essentially an accounting function, the legacy of this is a scary % of the top level of risk management often being accountants who know just enough maths to be dangerous.
Also there is erosion of quants as a distinct class of employee; an entry level trader will be expected to have done things that 10 years ago would have been quant skills, and the ability to understand and apply maths to banking is following the same pattern at IT skills.
30 years ago most bankers hardly used a computer at all there were computer people and non computer people.
Now of course traders can program in VBA and C++, mid office people routinely know SQL and VBA and everyone has to master packages of various kinds. Same with maths.
Risk management is of course the growth area, as the dead hand of accountancy loses its grip and the function grows in importance.
However the money doesn't follow that pattern yet.
At some firms a "Quantitative analyst" can be an Excel jockey, someone whose work is mainly adjusting risk and P&L reports, note I say "adjusting", others design and develop.
At others the same functional job title is a highly accomplished employee who models and sets direction.
Some firms have built central quant groups which do some work that is clearly FO like HFT but may also support the work of model validation making them not only back office but behind that.
Joy is right that the first wave of quants were directly coupled to trading, indeed at that point in time risk management was essentially an accounting function, the legacy of this is a scary % of the top level of risk management often being accountants who know just enough maths to be dangerous.
Also there is erosion of quants as a distinct class of employee; an entry level trader will be expected to have done things that 10 years ago would have been quant skills, and the ability to understand and apply maths to banking is following the same pattern at IT skills.
30 years ago most bankers hardly used a computer at all there were computer people and non computer people.
Now of course traders can program in VBA and C++, mid office people routinely know SQL and VBA and everyone has to master packages of various kinds. Same with maths.
Risk management is of course the growth area, as the dead hand of accountancy loses its grip and the function grows in importance.
However the money doesn't follow that pattern yet.
At some firms a "Quantitative analyst" can be an Excel jockey, someone whose work is mainly adjusting risk and P&L reports, note I say "adjusting", others design and develop.
At others the same functional job title is a highly accomplished employee who models and sets direction.
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