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Not sure if an MFE is right for me

Dumbpandabear

Dumbpandabear

Joined
1/4/24
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Background: I'm a rising 4th year in undergrad and majoring in Computer Science. I have a passion for programming and developed a deep interest in the financial markets, so naturally I've been looking into Quant Dev roles. I have a few previous internships in FinTech and am interning at Bloomberg this summer for SWE. My goals right now are to get into HFT (High Frequency Trading) firms for Quant Dev during the upcoming New Grad recruiting cycle.

MFE programs look really interesting and the applied math involved honestly seems really really cool. I'd mainly go to an MFE to get my foot in the door into trading firms as a Quant Dev (maybe Quant?) since I'm currently not from a target school. I think I'll get a Bloomberg New Grad return offer, so I don't know if dropping this offer to go to an MFE if I don't get any HFT offers would be wise.

MFE's seem really Quant Research focused, and I'm not opposed to being a Quant, but I just overall really like developing systems and am not sure if Quants do too much of that.

TLDR: I'm graduating soon and want to be a Quant Dev at an HFT, but not from a target school. Not sure if it'd be wise to drop a SWE New Grad offer for an MFE to get into trading firms as a Quant Dev.
 
TLDR: In my opinion, MFE is not for you. If you need Master's at all, Master's in CS/EE will make you better equipped.

If you want Quant Dev, I think you hit the nail on the head. My thought is to secure the new grad offer at Bloomberg as a backup, start studying for quant dev interviews now and try to get a quant dev Offer. If you don't get the quant dev offer immediately out of undergrad, you can keep applying or instead work for a year or 2 at Bloomberg and apply to a masters in CS program at a top school and try again. I can def tell you that Quant Dev is not the "target role" of most MFE programs and you'd be better off focusing on a master's in CS/Systems Engineering/Electrical Engineering etc. and taking a few applied math electives to appeal to the sensibility of Quant Finance rather than just doing a whole MFE.

Realistically, as a Quant Dev you are managing and deploying code to a model. Your job is to not destroy the whole thing with whatever code you add or change. Its good to be able to get the gist of what the math behind a model is doing, but you are expected to implement/optimize the math to a trading system, not create the model itself. Thus, for roles like Quant Dev, hedge funds are generally looking for extremely talented engineers who get the gist of what a Markov Chain is for example than a Mathematician who can code in C++. Would love to hear what other folks think!
 
Quant Dev, why not MS CS instead?
But again, you are already studying Computer Science, you can apply to those companies right away.

If you need a Masters to get new opportunities for internships and job offers in Quant Development, then MS CS is the way, I think.
 
If you already can program, especially in Java or C++, just try getting an HFT job. You will need those for the job you seek, not MFE.
 
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