4 ms·

The author is a headhunter and wrote a great guide to getting a quant job (www.ieor.columbia.edu/pdf-files/Paul_Dominic.pdf [PDF]). I guess that skews his p

The author is a headhunter and wrote a great guide to getting a quant job (www.ieor.columbia.edu/pdf-files/Paul_Dominic.pdf [PDF]). I guess that skews his perspective a bit in what he's looking for (numerical algorithms and C++). I'm guessing the situation isn't that bad for companies looking for plain old Java programmers. Finding graduates experienced with C++ and numerical algorithms is substantially harder!

ig1 16y ago
Agreed, Dominic is held in high-respect in the city and rightly so, but his core expertise isn't in graduate recruitment and it's shows here. If you want to hire for low level understanding go to universities like Cambridge, Warwick, Bristol, Imperial, York. Look at Aero Engineers and Physicists as well as CS students. Kings College has maybe a third or forth tier CS department, it's not surprising he's not finding great candidates from there. It also seems like he's relying on the mainstream recruitment boards, most talented graduate developers don't even look there. Most are recruited either through university events or dedicated graduate recruitment boards. Also there's a reason it's hard to find talented graduate developers willing to do VBA, because money isn't everything. Sure you might make an extra thousand pounds a year doing it, but that doesn't make worthwhile to do a job you hate. Most talented developers would rather get a job that pays less and is enjoyable.
- andrewingram 16y ago
  I went to Warwick (graduated with a CS MEng in 2006) and I would really hesitate to give preference to someone just because they have a degree from there. Admittedly I didn't really take advantage of what was available, but my interest is basically in building cool things during my day job. I don't really code for fun and I'm not particularly interesting in computer science theory except where I need it to make my work better. I've managed to do pretty well because I can balance above average programming skills with a fairly good sense of user interface and design. But ask me about compiler design or operating systems and you'll just get a blank look. I suppose my point is that I'm okay, but nothing exceptional and I don't have any real interest in the low levels of computer science. So to hold me in high regard just because I have a Masters from a top university is a massive mistake in my opinion. Heck, if I'd done more than just the coursework and a day's worth of revision per subject (I was also skipping about 3/4 of all lectures), my high 2.1 would have been a 1st fairly easily. Apologies for the rant, and my experiences at Warwick may be out of date now and may be untrue of the other institutes you've mentioned.
  - NickPollard 16y ago
    I don't think University works as a blanket indicator, but it definitely can help. At least at Bristol (my alma mater), the students are highly exposed to low level technical detail, with assignments including processor design, building an assembler, and in the final year, writing a kernel for a multi-processing OS (the hardest thing I've ever tried). They have courses on algorithms, computational complexity and a good mathematics unit too. Plus they teach C, Haskell and Java in the first year to give a good spread of different paradigms, and then expect students to go out and learn any other languages as appropriate for whatever they're working on at the time. I have my own issues with my time there, but for giving a good, detailed, low-level understanding of computing, I can't fault them.
    - andrewingram 16y ago
      That stuff all sounds more difficult than anything I was taught at Warwick, sounds like a good course (though not necessarily one I would have chosen :)).
  - ig1 16y ago
    I actually ran a recruitment stall at the IT & Engineering Careers Fair at Warwick in 2006, there were quite a few game development studios recruiting there at the same time, so I'm guessing Warwick does produce enough developers who are good at low-level stuff and general development to attract companies there.
    - andrewingram 16y ago
      Oh, there were some very talented people there. Some of them are friends of mine, but they're good because they're good, not because of the education provided by the university. Some have ended up doing game development, high performance computing, working at Amazon etc.
- roel_v 16y ago
  "Look at Aero Engineers and Physicists as well as CS students.". Exactly, look outside of traditional CS. Econometrics produces very good quantitative people, for example. Teaching them C++ is the easy part (relatively speaking).

ig1 16y ago

Agreed, Dominic is held in high-respect in the city and rightly so, but his core expertise isn't in graduate recruitment and it's shows here. If you want to hire for low level understanding go to universities like Cambridge, Warwick, Bristol, Imperial, York. Look at Aero Engineers and Physicists as well as CS students. Kings College has maybe a third or forth tier CS department, it's not surprising he's not finding great candidates from there. It also seems like he's relying on the mainstream recruitment boards, most talented graduate developers don't even look there. Most are recruited either through university events or dedicated graduate recruitment boards. Also there's a reason it's hard to find talented graduate developers willing to do VBA, because money isn't everything. Sure you might make an extra thousand pounds a year doing it, but that doesn't make worthwhile to do a job you hate. Most talented developers would rather get a job that pays less and is enjoyable.

andrewingram 16y ago
I went to Warwick (graduated with a CS MEng in 2006) and I would really hesitate to give preference to someone just because they have a degree from there. Admittedly I didn't really take advantage of what was available, but my interest is basically in building cool things during my day job. I don't really code for fun and I'm not particularly interesting in computer science theory except where I need it to make my work better. I've managed to do pretty well because I can balance above average programming skills with a fairly good sense of user interface and design. But ask me about compiler design or operating systems and you'll just get a blank look. I suppose my point is that I'm okay, but nothing exceptional and I don't have any real interest in the low levels of computer science. So to hold me in high regard just because I have a Masters from a top university is a massive mistake in my opinion. Heck, if I'd done more than just the coursework and a day's worth of revision per subject (I was also skipping about 3/4 of all lectures), my high 2.1 would have been a 1st fairly easily. Apologies for the rant, and my experiences at Warwick may be out of date now and may be untrue of the other institutes you've mentioned.
- NickPollard 16y ago
  I don't think University works as a blanket indicator, but it definitely can help. At least at Bristol (my alma mater), the students are highly exposed to low level technical detail, with assignments including processor design, building an assembler, and in the final year, writing a kernel for a multi-processing OS (the hardest thing I've ever tried). They have courses on algorithms, computational complexity and a good mathematics unit too. Plus they teach C, Haskell and Java in the first year to give a good spread of different paradigms, and then expect students to go out and learn any other languages as appropriate for whatever they're working on at the time. I have my own issues with my time there, but for giving a good, detailed, low-level understanding of computing, I can't fault them.
  - andrewingram 16y ago
    That stuff all sounds more difficult than anything I was taught at Warwick, sounds like a good course (though not necessarily one I would have chosen :)).
- ig1 16y ago
  I actually ran a recruitment stall at the IT & Engineering Careers Fair at Warwick in 2006, there were quite a few game development studios recruiting there at the same time, so I'm guessing Warwick does produce enough developers who are good at low-level stuff and general development to attract companies there.
  - andrewingram 16y ago
    Oh, there were some very talented people there. Some of them are friends of mine, but they're good because they're good, not because of the education provided by the university. Some have ended up doing game development, high performance computing, working at Amazon etc.
roel_v 16y ago
"Look at Aero Engineers and Physicists as well as CS students.". Exactly, look outside of traditional CS. Econometrics produces very good quantitative people, for example. Teaching them C++ is the easy part (relatively speaking).