Hi all, (I apologize in advance for the slightly long post.) I am looking for some advice and motivation because this is very important to me. I think I really want to get into #janestreetcapital (or a similar company) in a #Quantitative Researcher (or maybe even #Quantitative Trader - not sure on this one) type role. FYI before anything else - I am not saying any of this for the money or anything, since often I have seen few people on blind relate everything to TC. A bit background on how I got here - I grew up in Asia, I was a Math geek in school, got 100% in all tests and exams, was very good at it, participating and winning several Math Olympiads until high school/grade 12. I did all this because I truly loved Math since childhood. However, due to lot of family pressure, I ended up studying Mechanical Engineering in college. I didn't enjoy it at all, was unhappy, got OK grades, and started doing lots of drugs etc. during college + after college 2 years. After that really low period of drugs in life, I decided to make a change after receiving some therapy. I quit my Mech. Eng. job, and knowing nothing except that "I love Math and Stats and like coding", I decided to try Data Science in 2014-2015. Started at bottom as a SQL Product Analyst, doing dozens of courses (on Stats + Coding + ML + DL etc) online and working hard at work, I made it to being a Data Scientist (Statistics + Machine Learning) at my current employer and now do some cool ML and DL projects since last couple of years. At the moment, I do like my job but in the past 1-2 years I have developed a strong interest in financial markets, and I continue to learn advanced probability and statistics for fun in my free time. All of this makes me really think that I should definitely try and at least explore/interview a career in Quantitative Finance in a role that best uses my skills and interests, else I'll regret it later. And I feel one such role would be Quantitative Researcher at Jane Street (or similar company). I am not sure if #Quantitative Trader role would be something similar to my interests as well? Going through the JS careers page, Puzzles page, YouTube channel, I feel quite convinced that perhaps that's the kind of place and environment I would enjoy being in. Since past few months, I now feel that had I known about such a career when I was in grade 12, I would have definitely taken a college degree to facilitate this. I just love mental math, puzzles, stats, probability, financial markets and therefore realizing it more and more daily, now this feels like a very natural choice. So, I recently applied for a Quantitative Researcher (only new grad position was open) role in JS London but got a standard reply of rejection. I don't know how can I at least get an interview call. I am strong at Mental Math, Probability and Stats (I was able to solve most of Quant Researcher tagged Probability and Stats JS questions listed on JS Glassdoor interviews), Machine Learning, Coding, and I enjoy Financial Markets as well. I would really appreciate any advice, especially from people at Jane Street on how to carve such a career path, and how to get an interview call. Since I have a bachelor's in Mech. Eng. from a non ivy league college in Asia, that is certainly not impressive to JS. What else can I do? Solve puzzles on JS website and make submissions? Connect with JS recruiters on LinkedIn? Any JS events I can attend? Any other suggestions? Sorry for the long story and rant, and I will very much appreciate your advice and comments. In case you feel it wouldn't be a good move, please feel free to comment that with your reasoning as well. That's appreciated too. Thanks a lot in advance :) #janestreetcapital #janestreet #janestreetinterview #citadel #citadelsecurities #twosigma #twosigmacareers #quantitative #quant
Be good at brainteasers. JS likes to ask a ton of those for their QR roles
Don't listen to the other poster, you don't need a PhD. Your main obstacle will be getting the interview. I recommend showing a lot of commitment to Jane Street by being diligent about doing their puzzles, contributing to their open source OCaml projects, and reading blog posts by Jane Street employees on their website and messaging the authors about their work. I have a similar background as you (Math Olympiad, ICPC competitor, etc) but have never managed to score an interview at Jane Street. Everyone I know who has gotten an interview there falls into these buckets: 1. Attends a top 5 school 2. Interned at another quant firm 3. Interned at 2x big N / similar companies + showed lots of interest in Jane Street through the above mentioned activities.
Can attest personally to what google said. I fall in two of the above categories and got an interview. @Google: why not have another crack at JS? You have the google experience.
+1. Someone I know who got a JS interview was after he worked for a while at SIG. If one is from a well known quant firm, there’s a strong chance JS will interview, otherwise no. JS has a surprisingly high liking for people from HYPSM compared to other quant firms.
Why not try getting into other quant firms which are easier to get in than JS ? There are plenty and you'll get to work on similar things
Fundamentally, we just don't have many researcher jobs available, so it's just really hard to get an interview. Sorry. Not exactly sure of the numbers but we have something like 5 research interns a year, and yes, they usually have PhDs. For most people, "Quant Trader" is the right job instead. (For comparison, I think we had >100 trading interns this year) Don't worry, it involves plenty of research. Secondly, it's especially hard to get hired if you're not applying as an intern, because it's really hard to hire someone to be a full time trader/researcher off of just an interview. So if you're willing to take the risk of doing an internship, you'll have a better shot. You could also try sending in a CV for this role: https://www.janestreet.com/join-jane-street/position/4276720002/, which sounds more like your background. It's only listed for NYC, but given covid, you might have a shot applying from abroad. We're a much smaller place than FAANG, so we sadly can't interview everyone we want to, especially people with unusual backgrounds. It's somewhat more straightforward to get a software engineer offer as an experienced candidate since it's easier to interview for it, but it sounds like you're not interested in that. I encourage you to reach out to a recruiter or anyone you know who has worked at JS to explain your situation. Good luck!
Aren't internships restricted to only full-time students? In which case OP's best bet is to apply full-time or to the role you just linked.
Get a phd