Jack of all traders, master of none. FE career prospects with a bachelors in Engineering.

[Glenn Kroegel]

Firstly I would like to say hello to everyone reading as this is my first thread.

I am a mechanical engineer who graduated with first class honors at the end of 2011. Since then I have been employed professionally in the field, but have since gained a significant interest in the finance industry.

At the end of 2012 I started actively trading on the stock exchange after completing a two month course on options trading. I also read a lot in my spare time, and I'm finding that more and more of this time is becoming focused on finance. In short, I have a genuine interest in the field.

At work, I often use the Python and C# language to make several ad-hoc programs. I've also done an ISO certified course on C# and am considering doing the C++ certificate from this site, as well as a JAVA course in the future.

My question is this: Despite being good at math, I'm ultimately going to be less skilled at a quantitative finance role than someone with a PhD, and I'm not going to be as good a programmer as someone with an outright computer science degree. I've also never been too interested in finance jobs that didn't involve too much mathematics but areas such as algorithmic/high frequency trading do. But I find all the associated jobs want someone that is highly research focused (i.e. PhD in Applied Math) or an outright software developer. I seem to fall in the middle of which I don't see a place. A jack of all trades but master of none.

1. Is my Bachelor of Engineering enough to get into the field?

2. Am I wasting my time by doing more and more courses with the intention of getting into the field, if I don't have a PhD or computer science degree to back it up?

3. What else can I do without doing a PhD?

 

[Lyosha]

1. Noone knows for sure, try to get in and find out!
2. No, you are wasting your time taking courses in general. There are very very very few educational opportunities that have significant impact on your capacity to perform the type of work financial engineers actually perform. You will ultimately show up and realize 99% of what you learned does not get you anywhere. If you cannot break in with just a BA, perhaps a Master's degree will open doors. But for most of them that is the primary practical purpose, sadly.

I don't know of any Ph. D.s in computer science in the field (perhaps I need to network more, I'm sure they exist in throngs somewhere), therefore I find your stereotype is slightly puzzling. Most people I know tend to have Bachelor's or Master's terminal degrees. More masters than bachelor's if I had to guestimate. I certainly don't have a Ph. D.
3. Lots of things!

 

[Glenn Kroegel]

Thank you all for the responses.

I'm quite relieved that most of you are saying I don't need one, but my experience is based on looking at job postings on efinancialcareers and quantjobs. Obviously you don't need anything to do personal trades but most of those job postings say a PhD is a prerequisite.

Say I wanted to get into Algo/HF trading, what else could I do to boost my resume appeal that I have not mentioned above? I feel really naive in asking that question but any advice would be great.

 

[Glenn Kroegel]

Out of curiosity, are people mistakenly interpreting the "FE" in the thread title as a typo of "FX"?

If you are self employed(?) I can understand why you might not see the need, but what about working for a HFT firm?

I know I'm probably starting to sound annoying now but I just want to make sure I'm competitive as possible in my applications, and don't want down time later on because of a lack of information now. Thanks again guys.

 

[mscquant]

I'm in a similar situation, but it does look like having a phd is a mandatory thing. Not necessarily because it teaches you anything useful (remember phd programs are meant to train you as a serious researcher in a very specific and very small field within a small field within a small field...etc...) but it gives you the ticket to be considered on the interview list.

This whole educational degree inflation is pretty ridiculous, but we as newly grad job seekers have no choice but to follow the trend, because that's what the companies want.

 

[Glenn Kroegel]

I'm in a similar situation, but it does look like having a phd is a mandatory thing. Not necessarily because it teaches you anything useful (remember phd programs are meant to train you as a serious researcher in a very specific and very small field within a small field within a small field...etc...) but it gives you the ticket to be considered on the interview list.

I'm wondering if it's just because of where we are looking. Popular places to search for these jobs would most likely attract lots of applicants, so they set the standard high. I hope someone can provide some perspective here.

 

[mscquant]

I'm wondering if it's just because of where we are looking. Popular places to search for these jobs would most likely attract lots of applicants, so they set the standard high. I hope someone can provide some perspective here.

I'm currently interning at a small prop shop in Chicago area, I flew all the way here from NYC (yes, for an unpaid internship), because I couldn't find something there. But even when a small place like here, which has no name for itself in the market, posts an intern position, within days we receive 200-300 applications and 90% of them are phds. As you might have already guessed, the resume from the rest 10% doesn't even get looked at. I mean, out of the 90% (the phds), only 5 or 6 resumes are called in for interviews.

(How I got in is still a mystery, and I'm guessing I was really really really lucky with the timing, because these guys needed someone ASAP when I was applying 3 months ago. But my situation here isn't that great anyways, you can read my other post that they're not going to offer full-time to interns, but are exploiting the free labor of desperate graduates)

Plus, what I gathered from many working friends, newspaper articles, and articles on LinkedIn, people only (with a bit of exaggeration) look at applicants from internal referrals.

So I guess it boils down to, 1) do a phd, 2) know people.

You can cold-call or cold-email a lot of these funds, but they'll probably say "no phd, no job". I'm being told it won't be long until majority of the receptionists in the wall street are equipped with an IVY league title.

 

[Glenn Kroegel]

I'm hugely discouraged by that. Do you have a plan that involves not doing a PhD?

 

[mscquant]

I'm hugely discouraged by that. Do you have a plan that involves not doing a PhD?

I am actively looking for other opportunities through all sorts of ways, but front office are just not hiring at the moment. So it's basically which ever comes first for me. If I don't find anything before I'm offered an admission at a phd program, then I'm off to spend another 5-6 years in school

If you're really good at programming in c++ in terms of both accuracy and speed, you might have better luck joining as an developer on the execution/deployment side and then move on to more front office roles later. They seem to be in need of people.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

3. What else can I do without doing a PhD?

Programmer, for example. At least you'll have a job.

 

[Glenn Kroegel]

3. What else can I do without doing a PhD?

Programmer, for example. At least you'll have a job.

Like I said in my first post, I can program but I'm obviously way behind those from purely programming focused fields. Would doing a few courses, including the C++ course offered here tick that box or would I still be classified as a "non-programmer" in the eyes of recruiters?

P.S. I'm going to do the course regardless so don't feel discouraged about giving an honest answer.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Doing a hands-on course is always good.

In general, getting dev skills asap (ASAP) is a good investment.