Hello Blind Family! I am in need of help regarding making my career decision urgently. I was offered two positions as a fresher 1) Quant Position at JP Morgan (TC - 30Lpa, Base - 21L, Variable Bonus - 8 L) Team - Corporate Investment Banking 2) SDE 1 at Oracle (TC - 24.5 Lpa, Base - 15.5, Stocks - 8Lpa) Team - Oracle CX Apps Team (Responsys & Elqoua) How is quant field in terms of career. People who have both the experience are most welcome for advice. How is salary compared in both the industry at senior levels. What would be best job to take? How hard is to switch to SDE if I take Quant offer? Education - Tier 1, BTech in Computer Science, India PS - I am not worried about compensation at initial levels. #ubs #ey #goldman #goldmansachs #goldmanbonus #capitalone #capitaloneinternship #towerresearchcapital #alphagrep #trading #tradingtech #vp #associate #ib #investment #investmentbank #quant #softwareengineering #sde #jpmorgan #jpmorganchase #oracle #oracleemployees #uber #confluent #towerresearchcapital #microsoft #atlassian #google #amazon #flipkart #quant #swe #offer #jobhunt #jobopening #jobs #yugabyte #goldmansachs #hft #application #itransition #it #iit #bitspilani #sde2 #sde #sdet #swe2 #mumbai #finance #quant #risk #equity #tc #promotion #tech #information #it #tech #engineeringmanagercomp #engineer #engineering #engineeringprogrammanager #tech
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I think both the offers are lucrative in compensation but you be much better off with any other offer. Both these offers would be good after 2 years. Look for sde roles anywhere else
If you choose SDE now, it will be very difficult to get Quant after 2 years. If you choose Quant, you can get SDE in FAANG or similar companies after 2 years. SDE is more stable and predictable in case of career path. Quant is like make or break. Few positions in this field and if you hit gold, sky is the limit. However if it doesn't suit you, you can get SDE at a lower TC than what you will have if you start with SDE. Personally i will go with Quant because then i can have the option to work in both fields. However if money is not your motivation and you want to have good WLB from start, go for SDE.
Yeah, I know about less opportunity in quant wheras there is a lot of competition in SDE. The above points are basically my whole confusion. I am more familiar with SDE career path and options but with quant you can reach a lot higher position(like VP) in a few years. Can you give some pointers from your experiences to make this confusion a little decisive for me ?
First of all VP is not a higher position in finance. Large financial firms can have thousands of VPs. Make a decision by where do you want to see yourself in future. If you choose SDE, you will gain tech experience have good WLB, decent money and most probably in FAANG or startup in 5+ years. If you choose quant, you will get better money in start 3-4 years, more work hours than SDE. If you like the field and are able to perform well, you can do very well. Else you will apply for SDE and find that your batchmates that went for SDE in start are ahead than what you are getting. Its very difficult to predict quant future because its very diverse. I know people that were able to make 500k $ in India after 5 years in quant. (Very few, most TC from bonuses coming from their strategy). Few people got frustrated running simulations all the time and they joined FAANG. Most will end up making very similar money/slightly higher as their tech counterparts. If building stuff and learning new tech is your motivation, go for SDE. If money or maths excite you, try Quant. Still don't know what to do? Give quant a try. You will have the option to go for SDE. Won't happen the other way.
You need to make a call where you want to take your career. Quant means you will move along Hedge Funds etc etc. Lots of money lots of stress too. If you like Tech oracle seems to be the way to go. You can switch from Quant to product based later issue is you will not learn a lot of good industry standards and tech best practices so leveling can be an issue. But you can as well do your entire career in quant. If you have MBA plans go for Quant.
Since there are very less opportunities in quant, I had made career plans till date as how can I have opportunities as an SDE like Product management after MBA, or Senior SWE or Masters. But since Quant opportunities are very few and I have been offered one, I am a little confused. Personally I don't mind either as long as any career is healthy. I have to choose as which is more healthier?
Quant will be healthy enough. It depends on your interest. If you have none take quant for now and see how you like it. If you change within a year to tech wont be such a big issue even if you just get sde1. Tech to quant is much more difficult. I had an option to go for Quant at a Hedge Fund in Singapore but I chose tech as I did not enjoy just backtesting models and the pressure.
Take whatever interests you. You can make a switch anytime into SDE also you make a switch any time to JPMorgan/GS from SWE roles as well in the first 1-3 years. My advice, unless you are really interested and know you want to learn good software development practices come to JP. You will expand your horizons and learn a lot of stuff. Though do not the coding culture here is a bit lacking. Hacks Code that gets to production(sometimes with minimal tests) > well thought out code here. Also you are not a hedge fund quant and you are not making any strategies or getting fired in 1 year or even earn very huge bonuses. From my personal experience it’s been a role where you mostly can do either 1.) Library development in C++/Python 2.) Work on a stochastic models; learn about the maths behind this 3.) Work in Risk which comes under quant but a bit more back office. Here it’s mostly stats as opposed to Stoc Calc. Also seldom do ppl apply ML here. Salaries are more than SDE at the start but at SDE2 and above if you are a really good developer you will easily catch up(or even exceed if you have counter offers)
Is it oci at oracle? Do mention in post
Only OCI pays this much
Not really, my friend had offer of 18base at 10months yoe from non oci