non-IT quant roles

[Zeuge]

What are non-IT quant roles that don't require a PhD? As I understand it, most jobs advertised as "quantitative analyst" or a variant are glorified IT positions.

 

[DominiConnor]

It's generally accepted that quants spend aobut 60% of their time doing some form of programming.
Recently I was talking to a quant who has models named after him, he can write C++ DLLs for Excel addins, something a good % of IT department programmers would be intimidated by.

Some quant work is purely mathematical modelling, such roles are really rare, I'd say 1/200, which approximates to one per bank, with some banks having no one like that at all.
Outside that, pretty much the only quantish roles that require no programming are in sales, though occasionally some quants end up spending so much time managing others that they do little else.
Note I'm not saying that traders don't program, these days you can model the workflow of many traders as essentially tactical programmers and at some banks (like for instance JP Morgan) a good % of the traders are better programmers than the people they choose to hire as programmers. (these two trends are not causally unconnected)
The other non-programming quants I've encountered are consultants who are quasi-retired, in compliance (do you really want to go there ?), in regulators (you sound too bright for that) or teaching which my colleague Paul Wilmott manages to do pretty well from, but is not a position easily obtained.

Occasionally I come across people who want to be Quants who won't do programming, the technical term for such people is "unemployed".

The amount of programming of course varies widely and I inlcude use of Matlab/SAS/Mathematica/SPSS et al as programming since you're making a computer do most of the heavy lifting. The variance isn't just between different jobs, it will vary over time in any given job, I can nearly guarantee that any Quant job in a given 3 year period will have at least one block of months of "get up, go to work, program, go home, go to bed".
You might regard this with horror, which I will not criticize, my job is to help you get what you want, not tell you what to want.

 

[rabit]

Hi DominiConnor,

That was wonderful reply. Thanks for information.

How about product structurer? How much programming is involved in that?

Thanks

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Occasionally I come across people who want to be Quants who won't do programming, the technical term for such people is "unemployed".

Pretty funny, Dominic.
Bookmarked for future reference.