moving from mathematical research to mathematical finance

[Rupert McCallum]

If I am 39 years old, and completed a PhD in maths in 2009, and since then did one lectureship and some casual teaching and am now on my second post-doc, would I have decent chance of being able to switch to mathematical finance? Would my academic publication record be relevant? And would I need to get relevant qualifications first?

 

[Daniel Duffy]

What branch of maths did you do your PhD in?

Can you program in C++?

 

[Rupert McCallum]

What branch of maths did you do your PhD in?

Can you program in C++?

It was in the theory of buildings, which is related to the theory of algebraic groups. No probability or statistics, I am afraid.

I don't know C++ but I do have some paid freelance programming experience in Java from some time ago.

 

[Ryan Shrott]

@Rupert McCallum

http://www.markjoshi.com/downloads/advice.pdf

 

[Daniel Duffy]

In general, pure maths is about existence (and possibly uniqueness) theorems. In that sense it is not _methodical_A useful skill to have. However, the maths in finance tends to be algorithmic/applied/computational in nature. I am not an interviewer but I would have concerns about the transition.

So, I think having some exposure to numerical analysis, ODE, PDE, SDE etc. is useful

Being good in maths does not imply good in programming.

Maths is so broad; is knowledge of C* algebras 'useful', for example?

 

[Daniel Duffy]

It was in the theory of buildings, which is related to the theory of algebraic groups.

What kinds of problems does algebraic group theory solve?

 

[Rupert McCallum]

What kinds of problems does algebraic group theory solve?

If you were asking about applications I wouldn't be able to tell you in much detail. It overlaps with Lie group theory and Lie group theory has a lot of applications in mathematical physics and the study of elementary particles.

One important problem in algebraic group theory which was solved by people like Chevalley and Jacques Tits was to give a classification of the semisimple algebraic groups.

 

[Rupert McCallum]

@Rupert McCallum

http://www.markjoshi.com/downloads/advice.pdf

Thanks, this looks quite useful.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Studying maths without its having any tangible applications is not interesting IMO.

 

[C S]

It was in the theory of buildings, which is related to the theory of algebraic groups. No probability or statistics, I am afraid.

I don't know C++ but I do have some paid freelance programming experience in Java from some time ago.

You'll probably be fine as long as you don't expect more than say, someone that just got a masters in CS. There are a fair number of developers in finance that got a math-oriented PhD. Big banks are the typical suspects willing to take the time to train former academics to become real developers.

You should consider just going to Silicon Valley though. Working at a big bank isn't all that sexy (the guy next to me is still trying to get a trash can) and at first the pay seems great until you realize that it either gets used up in rent if you live near work, or you can live further away and lose 3 hours every day or more commuting. Those are hours they aren't paying you for.

 

[IntoDarkness]

though i dont sit next to cs, im also waiting for my trash can...