suggestion - moody's financial engineer

[damperwer]

Hi all,

Just need general thoughts on this position. What do you think are the career path's and future opportunities from this role? Please share your experiences.

Moody's Financial Engineer Structured Finance

Job description
As part of our analytic team you’ll work closely with our customers in the use of our suite of fixed income products. In particular, you will work as part of the structured finance team to support our products for both new and existing clients. You’ll also take part in the design and implementation of new features and analytics within our products, assisting Structured Analytics and Valuation’s clients in meeting their analytical and data needs.

FUNCTIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES:

Work with clients who structure, manage or invest in Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBS), Asset Backed Securities (ABS) and Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO) to answer questions on SAV's software applications
Provide product training, both onsite and remotely, as required by our customers
Work and collaborate with SAV’s product development team to design, build, and implement new features and functions for our analytic and data products
Work with the Implementation team to develop new customized technical tools for our clients to effectively analyze complex fixed-income securities
Maintain a current and detailed knowledge about the structured finance markets to better assist external clients with their requests
Work with modeling and data teams to build and improve our deal library coverage for ABS, MBS and CDOs

Qualifications
Knowledge of structured finance industry is helpful
Strong quantitative and analytical problem solving skills are required
Candidates must have strong communication and organizational skills
Capable of working and learning both independently as well as part of a team
Candidates must demonstrate initiative, enthusiasm and ability to learn quickly to bring success to our clients and our team
Some business travel is required
BS / MS in Engineering, Science, Finance, Mathematics or related field is preferred
Excellent Excel skills, knowledge of VBA or other scripting languages a plus

Department/Team
Structured Analytics and Valuations
The Structured Analytics & Valuations division of Moody's Analytics creates award winning software, comprehensive datasets and transparent models for the securitization market. Our platform is widely recognized for its unique abilities to support detailed analysis of the most sophisticated structured debt products. Our clients vary from regional banks to Tier I investment banks to hedge funds who structure, manage, and invest in the structured finance market. Our data content reflects past performance of transactions as well as models of the structural rules (waterfalls) governing them. Our analytic models allow customers to analyze the performance of these securities for pricing, trading, and risk management purposes. Our teams in South San Francisco, New York, London, and Tokyo support over 100 clients globally.

 

[mhy]

This is not a role that will lead to quantitative/trading jobs in the future. Stay away from it if that is what you want.

Seems like more of a customer service / liaison between quants&developers and users. I highlighted what I think are the 'red flags' pointing to this as a support job and not a development /quant job.

Note it says you will "take part in" a lot of things but that is not your primary function. You will "work with" the product development and implementation teams but you won't be in them.

Hi all,

Just need general thoughts on this position. What do you think are the career path's and future opportunities from this role? Please share your experiences.

Moody's Financial Engineer Structured Finance

Job description
As part of our analytic team you’ll work closely with our customers in the use of our suite of fixed income products. In particular, you will work as part of the structured finance team to support our products for both new and existing clients. You’ll also take part in the design and implementation of new features and analytics within our products, assisting Structured Analytics and Valuation’s clients in meeting their analytical and data needs.

FUNCTIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES:

Work with clients who structure, manage or invest in Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBS), Asset Backed Securities (ABS) and Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO) to answer questions on SAV's software applications
Provide product training, both onsite and remotely, as required by our customers
Work and collaborate with SAV’s product development team to design, build, and implement new features and functions for our analytic and data products
Work with the Implementation team to develop new customized technical tools for our clients to effectively analyze complex fixed-income securities
Maintain a current and detailed knowledge about the structured finance markets to better assist external clients with their requests
Work with modeling and data teams to build and improve our deal library coverage for ABS, MBS and CDOs

 

[damperwer]

This is not a role that will lead to quantitative/trading jobs in the future. Stay away from it if that is what you want.

Seems like more of a customer service / liaison between quants&developers and users. I highlighted what I think are the 'red flags' pointing to this as a support job and not a development /quant job.

Note it says you will "take part in" a lot of things but that is not your primary function. You will "work with" the product development and implementation teams but you won't be in them.

Thanks for your reply. I did note the observations that you have highlighted. However, given that I have very limited experience in these products, I was wondering if it would still add value to my CV? Also, what would be the transferable skills and anticipated opportunities when you move to a bank afterwards.

 

[C S]

Thanks for your reply. I did note the observations that you have highlighted. However, given that I have very limited experience in these products, I was wondering if it would still add value to my CV? Also, what would be the transferable skills and anticipated opportunities when you move to a bank afterwards.

IF you move to a bank afterwards.

The transferable skills would be your people skills. That IS actually valuable. Especially the ability to help clients deal with technical problems. But the same goes for being an Apple Genius too.

With a bit of luck, you could be production support for front office, but there's nothing about this Moody's job that signals "front line support in a fast-paced environment", so more likely you'd be production support for corporate tech. Pay is significantly less, the job less exciting, but at least job stability is better (mistakes are usually less impacting and more forgive-able, and the reality is everyone will make a mistake eventually).

 

[mhy]

Thanks for your reply. I did note the observations that you have highlighted. However, given that I have very limited experience in these products, I was wondering if it would still add value to my CV? Also, what would be the transferable skills and anticipated opportunities when you move to a bank afterwards.

You won't get much transferable "real" product knowledge. Support is just that, support. You will never understand the product as well as the developers do and you will basically be a buffer between them and users. As the poster above said, people skills are important anywhere but there are many more jobs that can help you with that.

Everyone I know in support gets stuck there unless they exit the industry, with very few exceptions. It's pretty much the worst place to be because everyone yells at you and you are never working on a real project, just putting out fires every day.

Be warned in advance!

 

[damperwer]

You won't get much transferable "real" product knowledge. Support is just that, support. You will never understand the product as well as the developers do and you will basically be a buffer between them and users. As the poster above said, people skills are important anywhere but there are many more jobs that can help you with that.

Everyone I know in support gets stuck there unless they exit the industry, with very few exceptions. It's pretty much the worst place to be because everyone yells at you and you are never working on a real project, just putting out fires every day.

Be warned in advance!

Thanks a lot for your input. It is very valuable.