Roles in tech vs quant
I worked at both Amazon and Bloomberg as SDE and I have lots of passion and experiences with machine learning (so basically I’m MLE). I’m strong and interested in both engineering/CS and math/stats, and my career goal is certainly to bring these two together. So for career development, I could choose continue in tech, or becomes quant at financial industry. Continue in tech: I’m familiar with everything (work culture, skills, interview tips ), and no further input, and I could be either MLE or data scientist. Switch to quant: Get more different life experiences, and I’ll gain lots of financial domain knowledge (lacks in tech, and I think domain knowledge and soft skill can make a difference for promotion in long-run). Also pay upper limit will be much higher at top funds? But this is whole new field, means More input such as getting a new MFE degree? Also heard quite competitive and more stress ? Thx for any suggestion!
What is it that you are asking? Quant was what ml is today. So I don’t see a reason to become a quant pursuing jobs. Today you do quant because you like it, and some people do.
Quant was what machine learning is today? But quant requires a lot of financial domain knowledge right?
No one gives a shit if you know anything about finance lol
The MFE won’t hurt but it won’t help as much as you’d like. A master’s in stats from a top school will help more but also not as much as you’d like.
Market is very saturated with new MFE grads these days. Go for a Stats degree if you need to upgrade your edu.
Ok thx. What about financial mathematics? Actually MFE/financial math/stat sounds quite similar to me
Traditional quants use a lot of math and heuristics, a lot of which aren’t really working anymore; hence the push towards Machine Learning as the models are more accurate and dynamic. A lot of quants will want to tell you that they’re really doing ML because they run a regression sigh...anyways, without getting too much into the weeds, instead of focusing on the field focus on a skill set. For eg ML is applicable across industries. If you’re trying to learn finance, take classes or something, becoming a quant will hardly help with that: actually working on the research side will teach you a lot, but that usually requires a PhD and you’ll work with people that write crappy code and try to do ML. A major drawback in finance that a lot of folks fail to realize is that you cannot trade your own account...unless you’re doing crypto.
Tag Two Sigma , Citadel, Google to get inputs from those folks
Why google?
Because there are people in Google who have worked at Two sigma and can give a good perspective of both sides.