4 ms·
Yes it's an awesome job, and not just because of the money. I've worked for small shops that weren't very profitable and didn't really make a lot those years, b
by mrchicity 10y ago
Yes it's an awesome job, and not just because of the money. I've worked for small shops that weren't very profitable and didn't really make a lot those years, but still loved the work.
I could see derivatives pricing being boring, not as much room for creativity there. The strategy/trading quant work is like a super open-ended science problem with a constant stream of new challenges as you try to outperform yourself or the competition.
FWIW, I don't think these are great questions for strategy quants. Some of the best people I've worked with a.) used very, very basic ML techniques b.) were just naturally smart/clever enough to engineer great features. and c.) had incredible attention to detail, didn't "hand wave" away the dirty work like checking/cleaning data or executing the model in practice.
- phee 10y agoAbout questions not being great, do they match what you could expect in a real world interview for a strategy quant position?
- evanpw 10y agoEverything in sections 1-3 looks like pretty standard entry-level strategy quant questions.
- maverick_iceman 10y agoI've heard the working hours are terrible with 12-14 hours workdays not at all uncommon. Is that true? Is the work pressure very high?
- hendzen 10y agoIf you're making money everything is relaxed. If your strategy is losing money things will be very tense. That's just how it is when you have skin in the game.
- niels_olson 10y ago>> 12-14 hours workdays not at all uncommon. > That's just how it is when you have skin in the game. MD here, and prior military. That's kind of how it is in any profession where you have skin in the game. Also, for those interested in physics: my undergrad quantum mechanics professor stopped in the middle of lecture once and announced to all of us, the only section of physics majors (17 in all): "Odds are no more than 1 of you will get a PhD in physics. If you want to keep doing math, most of the jobs are on Wall Street and Vegas." And just turned back to the board and kept writing. Probably something about a Hamiltonian...
- maverick_iceman 10y agoWhat's MD?
- reducesuffering 10y agoI assume doctor.
- oli5679 10y agoCan also mean 'managing director' in finance and other fields
- JustFinishedBSG 10y ago> I've heard the working hours are terrible with 12-14 hours workdays not at all uncommon. Derivatives quants have perfectly normal hours