Restarting at the bottom of the Trading ladder

[shadefaliam]

I work as analytical support / desk quant for fixed income trading desk of a bb bank in nyc. While I directly report to trading desk head, I work most closely with senior quants, developing strategies for sales and trading. To be clear, I enjoy my work and my pay is pretty good, bonuses commensurate with front office quants. However, at the end of day, I am not taking risk and hence not a revenue generator which is where I want to move towards. The problem is, even though I work work very closely with very senior traders, it is extremely unusual for the desks to hire someone on the trading seat who has not gone through the two year analyst rotation program. The salaries for analysts comes from HR and hence works as a good training ground for trading (and of course free and riskless labor for the desk). So I am contemplating if I should apply for the analyst program and restart right at the bottom as a trader. The program itself is very competitive but I can get personal recommendations from very senior traders /salespeople. I graduated college 4 years back, so I want to be sure that it is worth it, given the fact that sell side fixed income business is a pale shadow of what it used to be.

 

[ADT]

I can see how going through the analyst program could put you on that revenue generator track, but those analyst classes are primarily filled through junior year summer internships. In my analyst class, there were very few <5% full time spots filled by straight hires (non-interns), and those spots became available mostly when some intern reneged on accepting an offer very late into the year. Which makes me think that even with strong recommendation letters, you would probably not fit into the profile of what they are looking for (i.e. soon-to-be graduates, inexperienced cheap labor).

Even though it is rare for folks to move from desk quant/support to a trader role, there were definitely a handful of traders I met who made that transition. I think you are much better off trying your best to absolutely kill it in your current role, then start learning from and thinking like a trader, show off those thought processes in your interactions with the traders, then ask if you can make that transition. If you are really good at it - I don't see why they wouldn't give you that chance.

Good luck!