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What do you consider the be an appropriate Quantitative Analyst job?

Joined
9/10/19
Messages
105
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38
Curious if people had examples they could share (e.g. job postings) or their own personal criteria for what you feel is an proper Quant Analyst job. What tasks, or responsibilities should/shouldn't be included? While "Quant Analyst" isn't misused as much as other analyst job titles, things do vary. As for industries, there is a poll in the Big List of Quant Employers topic that has these industries:
  • Investment Banking
  • Asset Management
  • Commercial Banking
  • Hedge Fund
  • Insurance
  • Prop Trading
  • Credit Rating Agency
  • Accounting
  • Financial Services
I find Accounting to be the most iffy, and Financial Services 2nd most iffy. However, hedge funds, for example, do have an interesting set of institutions that aid with their business. State Street is one that comes to mind. They are considered to be in Financial Services. Curious to hear your thoughts, or see your examples.

Here are two example, which to me seem to qualify, but with some red flags.
- Sr Quantitative Analyst - San Ramon, CA - Indeed.com
- Quantitative Analyst - San Francisco, CA 94111 - Indeed.com
 
its more about what the job does instead of where the job is... your 1st bank of the west job is a more traditional commercial credit risk quant dealing with bank loans the job is mostly running logistic regression or other newer techniques to predict delinquency and default costs not the most exciting thing in the world and can be quite stale after a while your 2nd risk job reads more like compliance reporting which i would avoid 100% a "proper" quant job for a sell side investment bank would be something like desk strat who uses existing libraries/tools/data to price complex financial products or library quant who codes the libraries/tools desk strat uses or research quant who comes up periodic quant research reports for buy side or market making quant who builds the automated market making algos or model validator who validates library quant's models or ccar quant who helps the bank pass regulatory exams note that the later two quants are back office totally cost center who owe their existence largely to the regulation requirement a "proper" quant job for a buy side fund would be something like research quant who uses all kinds of techniques to come up with all kinds of investment strategies suitable for the fund to either aid the portfolio manager or execute directly or library quant whose job is similar to that on the sell side
 
That provides a lot of insight into sorting them out. Thank you. Also, yes. I did get a compliance and reporting vibe from the second one. Good to know someone else felt the same.
 
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