Quant Machine Learning positions

[DavidHilbert]

Hi,
I am currently studying in one of the top 5 MFE degrees in NYC and am looking for jobs. Thanks to my previous education and job, I've developed strong interest in machine learning and I would like to pursue jobs in the finance industry, where machine learning plays substantial role.

Can anyone tell me what quant positions/jobs/companies should I focus on, that use machine learning techniques and masters students have a shot there? I know about D.E.Shaw, Renaissance Technologies or Jane Street, but it looks like these places only hire Ph.D.s...

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[ShowMeTheLight]

It looks like almost all of the quant hedge funds / high frequency trading shops use some type of machine learning. I gather that a lot of it is not really that sophisticated (e.g. Naive Bayes, linear regression), but I'm sure some may be actually doing more cutting edge work (e.g. Bridgewater hired the Watson team).

Its safe to assume these days that all of the major quant firms are doing some, including some fundamentalist firms like Point72 and Bridgewater (as reported in the news).

Also, don't assume that only the famous firms are so great to work at. Its a lot harder to get a true quant researcher role there, and so most of their interviewing is for crappy software engineering roles (apologies to the devs out there).

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Naive question

ML == too many people looking for too few jobs?

BTW what about Big Data?

 

[DavidHilbert]

It looks like almost all of the quant hedge funds / high frequency trading shops use some type of machine learning. I gather that a lot of it is not really that sophisticated (e.g. Naive Bayes, linear regression), but I'm sure some may be actually doing more cutting edge work (e.g. Bridgewater hired the Watson team).

Its safe to assume these days that all of the major quant firms are doing some, including some fundamentalist firms like Point72 and Bridgewater (as reported in the news).

Also, don't assume that only the famous firms are so great to work at. Its a lot harder to get a true quant researcher role there, and so most of their interviewing is for crappy software engineering roles (apologies to the devs out there).

Thanks for the reply! Though from you reply it doesn't look like it's something that most firms are shifting to...

Naive question

ML == too many people looking for too few jobs?

BTW what about Big Data?

Why'd you say so? I honestly believe that ML positions have much greater potential than finance positions.
Well if I look at big data and subtract all the stuff I am not interested in (visualisation, storage, data management, etc.) I am basically left with data analytics and ML. Since I suppose the data analytics part is something they do everywhere, I wanted to know where they focus on the ML stuff too.

 

[ShowMeTheLight]

Naive question

ML == too many people looking for too few jobs?

BTW what about Big Data?

ML is in high demand across tech and finance. The thing is, there are a lot of people who call them selves "machine learning experts", when all they can really do is use a library. People who actually understand and can improve ML algorithms are much more scarce.

I even find that people who have a PhD in ML often don't know that much about actually implementing and improving algorithms. That's because they do their thesis on some arcane, narrow application or element of ML, and don't get the the broader hands-on exposure.

Big Data is an umbrella marketing term that encompasses cluster (aka "cloud") computing, NoSQL distributed databases, basic statistics and basic ML, and a lot of business/operations analysis.