Stress levels between quant traders and other quants

[Four]

Through my school's job boards I've seen internships for Quant Traders, Quant Developers, Desk Quants, and Quant Researchers (mostly for PhDs). I know what kind of work each does and how they differ, but was wondering how much stress each group has. I've heard that quant traders experience the most amount of stress out of the three. Is this true? Do Desk Quants and Quant Traders both experience the same amount of stress?

I've talked to an alumnus from my school who works at a large hedge fund and he said that he works for a trader and that his level of stress is the same as that of the trader.

What do other members here think? Do all quant traders experience high levels of stress and is it necessary to quit this line of work after a certain age for health reasons?

 

[PTN]

How could quant trader experienced the most stress as compared to other quants?

I am running on HFT for fixed income and equity indices. The algorithm decides entry, exit and manage risk level. I would say the program is running on auto pilot without any terrorist hijacking your algorithm.

So stress never exist on quant trader unless you failed to build a consistent profitable algo. This is unlikely to happen as of now only experienced quant trader with proven PnL rack records would to be hired.