My chance in MFE without math/stat background?

pingu said:
I understand and I understand Daniel's point of view. I think Daniel's experience is from the IT side of things. He might be right, C++ might be used a lot.

If people here want to go that route, sure, learn C++. Odds are you won't be using C++ on the financial side of things. Just keep that in mind.
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Talk is cheap.

Unfortunately, the Daves, pingus et al are all anonymous internet warriors so I have no idea what your background is.
 
Dave Lee said:
BTW, just checked your Linkedin Profile, you have never worked for a investment/trading firm as a front office quant, you are a system/software engineer. If I have your CV, I wont even interview you for the investment quant role in my team....just my 2 cents...
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I am _also_ a mathematician. And I train quants in numerical models for computational finance up to C++ and C#.
And I am not looking for a job .. been an employer for 31 years.
 
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@pingu - I am currently interviewing for a C++ quant developer role, for an internal position. All of the numerical analysis group(NAG) libraries, models, used for derivatives pricing by the quant-strats team are built in C++.

Its important to have a balanced world view.
 
Quasar Chunawala said:
@pingu - I am currently interviewing for a C++ quant developer role, for an internal position. All of the numerical analysis group(NAG) libraries, models, used for derivatives pricing by the quant-strats team are built in C++.

Its important to have a balanced world view.
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Indeed; another counterexample to the hypothesis :)

C++ with NAG is 'Big Iron'. Built for performance.
 
Quasar Chunawala said:
@pingu - I am currently interviewing for a C++ quant developer role, for an internal position. All of the numerical analysis group(NAG) libraries, models, used for derivatives pricing by the quant-strats team are built in C++.

Its important to have a balanced world view.
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This is key "C++ quant developer role". I never said anything about this. Again, I have nothing against C++ but the roles you will find are more IT related than a role closer to the "decision making" process. Again that's what I have seen for the last 10 years or so.

You guys don't need to be that defensive. This is just my opinion. If you are trying to justify your investment, I think you might be lying to yourself... but again, I might be wrong.
 
Daniel Duffy said:
Indeed; another counterexample to the hypothesis :)

C++ with NAG is 'Big Iron'. Built for performance.
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NAG and FinCAD and Numerix all expose their APIs to another languages.

You don't need to be that defensive. There are always going to be C++ roles in finance (there is an army needed in technology roles) but, IMHO, the people closer to the decision making process have been sitting far from C++ for a while now.
 
pingu said:
This is key "C++ quant developer role". I never said anything about this. Again, I have nothing against C++ but the roles you will find are more IT related than a role closer to the "decision making" process. Again that's what I have seen for the last 10 years or so.

You guys don't need to be that defensive. This is just my opinion. If you are trying to justify your investment, I think you might be lying to yourself... but again, I might be wrong.
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pingu said:
NAG and FinCAD and Numerix all expose their APIs to another languages.

You don't need to be that defensive. There are always going to be C++ roles in finance (there is an army needed in technology roles) but, IMHO, the people closer to the decision making process have been sitting far from C++ for a while now.
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DanielK said:
Hello Guys,

I am a recent grad from Penn State with BS in finance with 3.81/4.00 gpa. I have completed CFA level 1 and planning to take level 2 next month. I have a general finance job lined up soon and I am planning to pursue MFE degree after few years of working to hopefully land a job in quant field. Since I have only rudimentary math exposure and background in undergrad, I was wondering if I had absolutely no chance of getting into MFE in the future.

Thank you
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DanielK said:
Thank you for your reply!

If I complete those prereq courses for the program and c++, would my chance be still slim compare to other candidates with math/stat background? Even with the high gre or gmat score??
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pingu said:
no necessarily. Get math knowledge, probabilities and some programming language you can apply (not C++, believe me on this). Also learn as much as you can about the job you are in. That will be your angle.
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OP did not specify that he was specifically looking to get a decision-making role as a pure Quant on a trading desk (for which I concur with you, the vast majority of such roles do not use C++). Many people going for MFE and on this forum are not necessarily looking for such a role; there are many other roles graduates of MFE go for (in the 'Quant field'), and not just as a 2nd choice. In fact, I believe that the minority of MFE graduates seek or end up in such roles.

All OP was asking was if C++ would help admission to MFE programs, and for this the answer is certainly yes (as many roles that MFE programs do actually place into, do require C++).
 
APalley said:
OP did not specify that he was specifically looking to get a decision-making role as a pure Quant on a trading desk (for which I concur with you, the vast majority of such roles do not use C++). Many people going for MFE and on this forum are not necessarily looking for such a role; there are many other roles graduates of MFE go for (in the 'Quant field'), and not just as a 2nd choice. In fact, I believe that the minority of MFE graduates seek or end up in such roles.

All OP was asking was if C++ would help admission to MFE programs, and for this the answer is certainly yes (as many roles that MFE programs do actually place into, do require C++).
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This is the most reasonable answer I have seen so far. I completely agree with you.

Also, the OP didn't mention C++ in his original post. Andy recommended it and I gave my opinion to learn R or Python.
 
One point is if you know C++ well + its foundation you will learn languages such as Python and packet R in no time.

I wonder why they ask C++ questions at interviews.

I know for a fact that quite a few of the world's top quants use C++.
 
Daniel Duffy said:
One point is if you know C++ well + its foundation you will learn languages such as Python and packet R in no time.

I wonder why they ask C++ questions at interviews.

I know for a fact that quite a few of the world's top quants use C++.
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Here is my opinion and experience. If you learn C++ well, you will have an easier time learning other languages if they come from the C family. It will also forced you to think about things you that you won't think about when you are coding a system. But I won't expect a quant to do these things. As a finance quant, I want to worry about the finance problem and not the computational problem of the big system.

The only people asking C++ questions are old timers. I haven't seen any of this in the recent past for younger quants (and by younger I mean 8-10 years in the industry).

I don't know that many world top quants working in C++ for the past 5 years. If you go to conferences and speak with them, it's all R, Python, Matlab and Mathematica.
 
pingu said:
Here is my opinion and experience. If you learn C++ well, you will have an easier time learning other languages if they come from the C family. It will also forced you to think about things you that you won't think about when you are coding a system. But I won't expect a quant to do these things. As a finance quant, I want to worry about the finance problem and not the computational problem of the big system.

The only people asking C++ questions are old timers. I haven't seen any of this in the recent past for younger quants (and by younger I mean 8-10 years in the industry).

I don't know that many world top quants working in C++ for the past 5 years. If you go to conferences and speak with them, it's all R, Python, Matlab and Mathematica.
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If you know C++11 and its functional programming you can learn F# and Python.

The only people asking C++ questions are old timers.
Your time will come.
 
Daniel Duffy said:
If you know C++11 and its functional programming you can learn F# and Python.

The only people asking C++ questions are old timers.
Your time will come.
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the jump from C++ to F# is long. It's not as easy as you put it. The jump to Python is easier.

Regarding point #2, my time came and I learned. I'm an old timer with new tricks. I've been around for 20 years.
 
One of my former employees (C++, C#) picked up F# in a few weeks. It's not so difficult.
 
pingu said:
Oh, it is. Don't fool yourself. It's a different way of thinking that could trip you up if you are not used to it.
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You don't say. What kinds of 'trips ups'? LOL

FP is grounded in mathematics. lambda calculus and Category theory, which is(was) undergrad level over here. Standard stuff. I know some Haskell and is OK.
 
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from c++ to f# is not easy. i come from c family language and found functional programming not intuitive to me. i have to spend time learning this thing but i just dont have time...
 
Daniel Duffy said:
You don't say. What kinds of 'trips ups'? LOL

FP is grounded in mathematics. lambda calculus and Category theory, which is(was) undergrad level over here. Standard stuff. I know some Haskell and is OK.
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Ah, if you know lambda calculus that's a totally different ball game. However, most of coders don't come from that world.
If you started coding by learning from SICP, learning F# is a cake walk.
 

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