I went to school for a BS in CS. Always interested in FinTech, mostly Quant trading, mid and high frequency, buy side. I decided to grow my tech knowledge and pursue a career in big tech, thinking if I can be a good programmer a quant firm would take me (couldn't get in through the finance route w/ my bg) I always thought I could get a promo (L4-L5) in ~2 years and jump to quant, but I got the promo ahead of time and still can't get calls at any tier 2 (Point72, Square point) or tier 1 (CitSec, HRT) companies. Recruiters ghost me. Do I need to get to L6? Can I lateral w/o a masters? Feels like the longer I stay in tech the harder it's gonna be to make the move. Maybe I should stay in big tech and be grateful? My comp and WLB are exceptional, but I've always wanted to get into Quant trading for wild $$$ am I delusional?
Here’s how do you do it: First get in the door as a dev on the tech side. That’s the easy part. Now grind hard, make friends with front office teams, get one of them to hire you as quant dev, grind 5x harder, grind even more, beg for a chance to try generating some trade ideas, hope, and pray. Maybe, at that point, you’ll be granted the ability to grind yet harder as quant researcher. Or maybe not. Enjoy the journey!
Are you saying the big $$$ is quant research? I'm worried my equivalent role in a quant shop is basically a slave and ill actually take home less (stock comp is good while it's good). I can't compete with PHD quant research. I'm good at math but there's a reason I left school after bachelors. Does anyone even get to quant research through dev role w/o grad school or PHD?
“Yes”. Think about it from the corporate side - if you have a finite amount of money, are you gonna pay the person who’s okay or the 1 in 10 million PHD Quant Researcher?
There are thousands of Amazon applicants so you need something to stand out. Do you work on C++? Do you work on high throughput low latency systems? Do you work with large scale distributed systems? Do you work on anything niche like AI/ML systems, GPUs, compilers, HPC, etc? Do you have competitive accolades? Did you go to a good school? If you answered no to > half these questions you probably won't get an interview. Trading firms can afford to be picky. If they are consistently ghosting you, then you likely are not exceptional enough yet (or you are not conveying your skills correctly on your resume). If you already have good WLB and Comp then stick to tech. You can make a good amount of money at a company like Meta or Google with less stress, and you'll have a much higher chance of getting an interview there.
Yes to 2 and 3 but that's it. Is RPI a good school in your eyes? What can I do to help myself standout? Is production C++ a must? I always figured pivoting back from quant to tech would be easy if I ended up not liking it.
RPI is meh at best. Production C++ is ideal, sometimes required. Most quant companies are prestige riders. To boost your chances you need to be at a better, well known company like Google or Meta or at least be doing something interesting at your company like kernel dev, compiler work, C++ library work, etc. And ideally you should be from a better school too, at a place at least better than something like Mich or Berkeley.