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Quant vs. IB

Jobo

Joined
9/29/19
Messages
8
Points
13
I know, an investment banker does merely simple calculations like additions, substractions, multiplications in the job and could start to earn six figures by being in analyst position. But doing IB opens up a lot of exit opportunities and let you equip much better skills than quant finance roles. So, why did you choose quant over IB? Purely out of interest in math? If you could start over, would you still be in quant finance?
 
I've been in middle office and front office.

You're either cut out for front office or not. The pace is very fast and standards in front office are pretty high. It's not unknown for meticulous people to get poor feedback on attention to detail in front office, but where they never get that bad feedback in any other industry they work in. And I've seen some people with good social skills get asked to improve communication skills in front office finance, yet never get that feedback elsewhere. Middle office can often be much more relaxed, especially on politics.

You have to think long term. If you're not cut out for front office finance you won't last in front office, nowhere to hide. I've come across back office accountants that are unsuited to their jobs and that never got kicked out after 30 years in their line of work, but front office isn't as easy going.

Flip side of course is that if you're cut out to be in IB as a loans analyst you'll probably find work pretty quickly no matter what happens to markets.

That's it really, if I was advising my 23 year old self I would try and start off as a middle office quant but gaining some of the client facing, people and business skills I got from front office. I find I use those soft skills to my advantage as a data professional. The drawback was that using them as selling points was difficult as managers had a tendency to not see past the fact that my IB roles used very little in terms of hard quant skills, which is why I'd try get a middle office role. It's not about "interest", it's about being "useful" and playing to your strengths.
 
Liam said:
I've been in middle office and front office.

You're either cut out for front office or not. The pace is very fast and standards in front office are pretty high. It's not unknown for meticulous people to get poor feedback on attention to detail in front office, but where they never get that bad feedback in any other industry they work in. And I've seen some people with good social skills get asked to improve communication skills in front office finance, yet never get that feedback elsewhere. Middle office can often be much more relaxed, especially on politics.

You have to think long term. If you're not cut out for front office finance you won't last in front office, nowhere to hide. I've come across back office accountants that are unsuited to their jobs and that never got kicked out after 30 years in their line of work, but front office isn't as easy going.

Flip side of course is that if you're cut out to be in IB as a loans analyst you'll probably find work pretty quickly no matter what happens to markets.

That's it really, if I was advising my 23 year old self I would try and start off as a middle office quant but gaining some of the client facing, people and business skills I got from front office. I find I use those soft skills to my advantage as a data professional. The drawback was that using them as selling points was difficult as managers had a tendency to not see past the fact that my IB roles used very little in terms of hard quant skills, which is why I'd try get a middle office role. It's not about "interest", it's about being "useful" and playing to your strengths.
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Very well-said. Spot on. I was a junior quant (in the 80s when is wasn't so popular) and then a trader. I spend the last 25 years of my career in risk. The "beta" is much higher in the FO and everything (comp, job security, business flow) varies widely. In the MO, the flow is much more consistent and you aren't so subject to the vagaries of the market.
 
Ken Abbott said:
Very well-said. Spot on. I was a junior quant (in the 80s when is wasn't so popular) and then a trader. I spend the last 25 years of my career in risk. The "beta" is much higher in the FO and everything (comp, job security, business flow) varies widely. In the MO, the flow is much more consistent and you aren't so subject to the vagaries of the market.
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Would you say the new data scientist roles in demand nowadays are MO?
 
quantsmodelsbottles said:
Would you say the new data scientist roles in demand nowadays are MO?
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Sorry to cut across you, Ken, but I'd say data science is something different from middle and front office. Some data science roles you will work with companies that know what it's about and need it eg Google or Amazon recommender projects etc. Or funky stuff like building handwriting recognition tools. You might find some of the stability of middle office finance and more. One thing I've heard happens with firms like BBC and developers is they ensure you get exposed to enough technologies that you're not pigeonholed and vulnerable to markets like in finance. Probably get that with data scientists aswell.

But there's also firms where managers hire data scientists with no clue about limitations of machine learning, just looking to impress their bosses. Will ask you to do impossible projects like predict revenues for all their offices, and where the margin for error is within 1% for 95% of all sites. And when the actual result is 1% error across 80% of sites the data scientist looks like they didn't do their job.

People ignore these things when a job becomes a fad/gold rush as it's fashionable to roar about there being "a lot of money in that game", but I have heard of data scientists experiencing the rotten end of piss poor corporate nonsense. There's also a lot of bait and switching where the role is misadvertised as machine learning. It's not like finance where a lot of firms know how to use quants (sort of).

I freelance now as I want to avoid being done over and have clients that know limitations of data science, but may be forced to take this thing called a "job" again for reasons I won't go into, and knowing my luck I'll probably get done over by some corporate nonsense.
 
Liam said:
You might find some of the stability of middle office finance and more. One thing I've heard happens with firms like BBC and developers is they ensure you get exposed to enough technologies that you're not pigeonholed and vulnerable to markets like in finance. Probably get that with data scientists aswell.
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I was thinking data science roles within quant finance (and fundamental shops that need a lending hand), but this is helpful as well. Data science roles I see as worth considering in other industries if it's one of the more legitimate and reputable ones. Good to know what you're getting into before jumping into it.
 
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