Hi all, I am interning this summer as a technology analyst at Morgan Stanley and would like to know more about the transition from technology analyst to quant at Morgan Stanley. Has this been done before, and what tips can anyone provide on how to go about the transition? I have yet to choose my team (wealth management), so is it possible for me to pick a team that is particularly "quant-y" and go for a quant return offer? For reference, I go to an Ivy and have made it into the final rounds of several prop trading/HF firms for QR, QT, and QD. I also have offers from FAANG (Amazon) for SWE internships, but believe it would be a harder jump from there to quant. Any opinions, advice, and general wisdom would greatly be appreciated! #morganstanley #quant #technologyanalyst #swe #faang #research #ms #gs #jp #tech #drw #akuna #citadel #amazon #apple #google #facebook #netflix #ts #twosigma #js #janestreet #imc #trading #imctrading #deshaw #virtu #flow #point72 #jump #aqr #bridgewater
Put more broadly, you want to go to back office to front office, which in it of itself is very challenging.
Will the fact that I'm an intern impact this at all? I could try for a return offer as quant?
Why do you want to be a quant and not a dev? Quant is a very frustrating role - develop strategies for months that are successful 5% of the time - 95% of the strategies you try will fail. It is a lot of data wrangling, pivoting and searching. I have similar background to you and I've done the jump a few times now. It is possible if you work hard and show eagerness to learn and are loyal to the company - someone will take a chance on you eventually. Personally I've always regretted the transition from Dev to Quant. The work was monotonous and very frustrating. I always moved somewhere else around a year after the transition. If you want money, quant isn't the way to go because slow and steady wins the race. If you're a quant you will be let go if you don't provide strategies that work or your PM or manager runs out of ideas whereas a dev will get a steady flow of projects to do and if they run out it is easy to move somewhere else.
Not familiar with AM but in S&T quants are called strats. However strats cover a wide spectrum and a lot of them have pure tech backgrounds. I wouldn't worry too much during your internship. I've seen technology analyst land trading and strat roles via senior year recruiting. Pick teams with interesting tech if you can (ML, AI, KDB aka the usual sexy sounding stuff). p.s. Agree with the millennium poster. If you are in the US it is hard to justify a quant career nowadays when comparing against FAANG. The risk adjusted return is definitely not as good. I'd also argue a FAANG internship will be way more useful than interning at AM tech for quant career. Think hard about it.
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It is very difficult. Technology Analysts are hired for front end and back end roles for infrastructure development. Quants are usually paid very high and have a different hiring strategy altogether. I haven't seen anyone making this transition. If you're so confident, feel free to apply when an opening of a Quant comes
Are you based in US or India? And so do you suggest that I take the FAANG swe offer and try to recruit quant later? Have you seen FAANG swes move into quant?