Should I leave my current job for MFE?

[Daniel Duffy]

What do you do with the rest of the day?
OP has a 'luxury' problem. Good job _and_ time on your hands.

In any environment, 'skills 1/2 life' is an issue to consider, especially if the word 'consultancy' gets into the discussion.

As Dominic says, programming skills are important.

 

[MiloRambaldi]

You say you work 2-3 hours a day and get your stuff done. What do you do with the rest of the day?

My understanding of the OP is that he has to sit in meetings the rest of the workday. Otherwise he would be daft to consider quitting his job.

 

[tarantino]

My understanding of the OP is that he has to sit in meetings the rest of the workday. Otherwise he would be daft to consider quitting his job.

Indeed. And I shall offer no protest to the assertion that sitting in meetings all day is a pain that far exceeds actually working.

 

[mfe_candidate]

maybe I have to correct the misunderstanding, I do not have 6 hours free and can do whatever I want. What I mean is that I only need 2 or 3 hours of REAL work a day, and the rest of the time I need to attend various meetings, sometime useless meetings, most of them I do not need to do anything or just listen. This is the pain in the *** as I have the time but I cannot use it to attend say full time job full time study like many other people have done

 

[mfe_candidate]

Andy is right, there's a lot of people frustrated in their finance work, indeed mfe_candidate shows some of the things I experienced in my last real job before I quit to become a headhunter. I model this as an energy term, that provides motivation for changing things at the price of greater risk, the trick is therefore to get the most return from the risks taken.

Also, being paid what amounts to $1,000 per hour is not sustainable, one day maybe tomorrow, maybe next year someone is going to make you do some heavy lifting or fire you and if you're not doing anything hard it means your skills have not developed enough to easily get another job.

He does sound quite a bit like some of the people we get on the CQF with decent jobs in terms of pay but that don't seem to have a realistic chance of evolving into something they can take satisfaction from. However it's cheaper and you don't have to quit your job. I don't know enough to say if he should do the CQf, but it ought to be on the list of options and it is that list that should be the first task.

MFEs of various kinds make sense, but also those in stats and/or econometrics., cast the net wide then remove things you can't get or don't offer enough optionality.

The OP doesn't say what sort of firm he works for, but I'm guessing a consultancy or systems house.
In his place I'd certainly work on my programming, he can get his C++ up to a better level and learn techniques like sucking data out of Bloomberg & Reuters, VBA can also represent a good return on investment.

You can just buy the books, more than one PhD has done it that way.
Work your way through Wilmott's 3 volume book and Joshi's interview questions, Duffy's C++ books as well as Sutters and then attack Shreve. That's a lot of reading (circa 10,000 pages) but with diligence, determination and aptitude that can get you past many quant interviews. Also the Schaum books on LA, PDEs et al won't hurt at all.
This option has the beauty of being cheap ($1500), low risk (you don't have to quit your job) and if you choose to pursue formal education options it puts you ahead of some of your competitors.
It is of course hard work and requires self discipline.

This is very useful! Thanks for such a thorough advice..