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Ask HN: Does a CFA Matter in FinTech?

10 points by gunshowmo 5y ago

Hi, For quite a while I've had difficulties deciding what I actually enjoy doing and managing my motivation, so I let myself get into a bad place academically, although I have my degree now (Bio Major, CS Minor), and have roughly 4 years of work experience in a large bank as an analyst. During that time, I've learnt a lot about programming, mostly in my spare time but also professionally as well. Although I was in analyst roles, I pushed to make my role a bit more developer-like. I created an end-to-end prototype in Python of a software solution we were building as part of the project that I was assigned to. This was then used as a template for the real developers to base their work off of. In my spare time, I learned how to automate cloud infrastucture deployments using a Packer, Terraform, Docker, Kubernetes, and kOps stack. I've also set up full CRUD apps with a Node REST API backend and React frontend, SQL DBs, etc... I've also currently passed the first 2 levels of the CFA program, and plan to finish the third this year. I think I was uninformed when I made the decision to go for the CFA since I find a lot more joy in programming than pure investment management, but I was hoping it could serve as a foundation for a position in fintech. The last time I was searching around for jobs, I didn't get many responses at all for developer/engineer roles given my experience only being in analyst roles. so at this point I'm a bit uncertain about my employability going forward. I'm based in Toronto but did apply at various comapnies (large and startups) across Canada & US. What I was hoping to ask is if anyone here would know if finishing off my CFA would even help me get a tech role at a fintech company given my lack of experience as a developer? Is there anything I could work on as a portfolio app/demo to improve my chances there specfically? Even general advice on what steps I should take going forward would be much appreciated. Thanks for your time.

neximo64 5y ago
No it wont really help. In fact I would say it may even be a bit of a hinderance & quite possibly you wouldn't be used in a tech role and rather a different role like biz-dev in a fintech which is also harder to compete in as there are more candidates. I would say that getting bad grades is possibly fine the knowledge you have with tech is what you want to nurture directly if thats what you want to be good at. If its your first job its going to be hard anyway but the grades are only judged really at that point then subsequently its on your ability. If you are having trouble getting hired go for more niche knowledge for example a specific python skill, or rust async and find an employer who wants that. Its easier to show your skills off & be hired for with specialised rather than broad knowledge all over the place. REST/CRUD, React, etc is very broad and there are tonnes of candidates everywhere, even remotely..
- gunshowmo 5y ago
  Thanks for the response, really appreciate the advice. I definitely feel like my skillset is a lot more broad than it is deep so that's something I'll work on addressing. I have been meaning to take a look at Rust so this seems like a good reason to start. For Python I really have trouble thinking of an interesting project rather than creating something that a library can already do much better already.
- giantg2 5y ago
  "No it wont really help. In fact I would say it may even be a bit of a hinderance & quite possibly you wouldn't be used in a tech role and rather a different role like biz-dev in a fintech which is also harder to compete in as there are more candidates." I disagree. I work in finance and the company does think highly of people who have a CFA in a tech role. Sure, you could be a business side developer (which actually pays more). But they still allow you to work as a regular dev. Some areas of the company very strongly suggest (unofficially require) a CFA Foundations cert. On a side note, how do you plan to get a CFA charter? I believe they require you to be working in the industry for years before you can apply.
  - gunshowmo 5y ago
    That's really good to know, thank you for that info. I've accumulated roughly 4 years of experience as a full time employee/contractor at a large bank in roles falling into the program's guidelines, so I hope that will allow me to pass that requirement.
  - neximo64 5y ago
    Id disagree with you, and i've worked in a fintech as a hiring manager have CFAs on the team - with or without it its not been any different. If I can ask do you have a CFA yourself/are you in the process of getting one as I feel this would significantly bias your answer. It was a hard decision but I feel it was the right one.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      This is at a large company. A coworker who worked at another large company previously said it was similar there too. There's a big push for developers to have business acumen so that they understand what they are building, asking appropriate questions while not slowing the process down with trivial questions. It also seems that many of the people in finance, even on the tech side, are concerned with reputation and prestige. Things like credentials and status symbols (like talking about thier luxury cars and expensive toys) are common in the trading and trading support areas of the company. I do not have a CFA charter, nor want one. I did take the CFA Foundations cert since management made it unofficially mandatory. I think this level of knowledge would be useful for devs working in that area, but this isn't the only measure of that knowledge. At that time, the cert cost money and was held at a test center (it's now free and online). I tried to avoid taking it since I already have that knowledge from my business admin minor, but management basically forced me to take it anyways. I passed it two days later and management was amazed - I guess they didn't believe that I my minor was worth anything but that this stupid test was. So it might be different at your company, but there are companies and managers out there who look favorably on having a CFA Foundations or CFA Charter (or even just passing level 1 or 2). It can even get you more pay. It's credentialing similar to others you would list on a resume, like the OP mentioning his major/minor in his post. The real issue for the OP, is that if he's unemployed then he can't get a CFA charter anyways since you have to have years of experience in the industry and your company to sponsor/approve you if you don't work in one of the approved/listed roles (on the business side).
shubik22 5y ago
I made the transition from finance to tech about 7 years ago. I had passed the first two levels of the CFA before becoming a software engineer. My first job in tech was at a fintech company. While there I studied for and passed level 3. My two cents: I’m sure there are some employers and situations where having a CFA will be beneficial. But given how much time and effort it takes to pass each test, I think you’re far better off spending that time learning or working on something that’s directly applicable to your job. This is especially true if you’re trying to transition into tech from a non-technical background. Hope that helps! (And happy to answer any specific questions as well.)
- gunshowmo 5y ago
  Thanks a lot for responding. At this point with only 1 exam left which I've already signed up for, I'll be finishing off the exam just for my own sense of closure, but I'll definitely follow up with some more tech-centric projects. Do you have any recommendations at all for what I should be focusing on while building out a resume in terms of skill sets to develop and projects to demo them? My only real "portfolio" project is a SPA repo I've been working on that integrates most of the DevOps, Backend and Frontend knoweldge I've built up, but it's quite incomplete right now. Also I guess a big question would be how I should approach making that initial transition career-wise in terms of what levels of SWE roles (Intern? Level I?) I should apply to. And a pretty trivial one: should the resume be more then one page? Really appreciate your help!
  - anon_noway 5y ago
    Would be interested in discussing a project(startup idea) with you. If interested, my email is in my profile.
    - gunshowmo 5y ago
      Just sent an email
      - anon_noway 5y ago
d--b 5y ago
Fintech is a bit too wide a term to be able to answer easily. It covers anything from payment processing to high frequency trading. If you want to work in companies that make softwares that help manage corporate finance then maybe a CFA is good, I wouldnt know. I’ve worked at investment bank’s tech and quant teams and CFA is not useful at all. If anything it may paint you as the IT person who think that an exam will help them break through the tech/business divide and become a trader. In my experience, CFA is generally seen as an antiquated education and people will think you’ve wasted a ton of time working on this. Now, the way you presented yourself here is neat. You’re showing a great level of independance and a taste for tinkering with both finance and technical stuff. This is well regarded in investment banks. I have no doubt that you’ll be able to find a job there. My advice to you is that you should leave the CFA level-2 on your resume, and if people ask you, tell them that you did it cause you found it interesting. It’ll make you look like a curious person. But I don’t think that the effort required to pass level 3 is worth it. Godspeed!
- gunshowmo 5y ago
  Thanks for taking the time to response, this was at least a bit encouraging. For me, IB and quant work are things I'm extremely interested in, but they feel more like a pipe dream given that a lot of financial institutions I've applied to seemed to look heavily at GPAs for the associate roles. Would you have any recommendations at all for how I can work on getting my foot in the door at an IB firm? Cheers.
  - phyalow 5y ago
    I was a trader at a IB for years. Honestly dont bother. Get a good tech job. Banks are terribly bureaucratic, political and now highly regulated. As a result they (mostly) have been in steady state decline since the GFC.
    - gunshowmo 5y ago
      Thanks for the reply - I would like to be close to the tech side if I can but it's been tough so far without the initial experience. I'll keep revising and sending out my resume to the tech names as well to hopefully at least get an interview.
deleted 5y ago
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OnlyMateo 5y ago
Fintech in general is about some tech-useful services for users as applied to money (in different ways). It's not about proper money management and in that case, as I think, you don't need CFA to do (or wotk in) some Fintech services. Experience in classical finance will be really useful because you can understand a problem. But again this is not about CFA.
- gunshowmo 5y ago
  Definitely, I don't expect at all to be reaching into the CFA material on a day-to-day, but was wondering if it would at least be something I could put on my resume when applying. Thanks for your response!
guard0g 5y ago
Don’t waste your time or money on a CFA, unless you want a slow buy-side job or aim to become a financial advisor. The curriculum is out-of-date and in some parts wrong. It’s also missing the ‘tech’ in fin-tech. You are better off self-studying quantitative finance or learn about payments (stay away from asset allocation as this eventually leads to a high paying sales job as head of asset allocation).
- gunshowmo 5y ago
  Thanks for the advice - are there certain topics I can learn about or some way you think I can work on making my resume stand out in any way after acquiring those skills?
  - guard0g 5y ago
    Nowadays RL and Gaussian processes are very popular on the trading side, as is applying attention-based NLP techniques for pattern recognition. If you are interested in stochastic calculus and convex strategies, John Hull's "Options, Futures and Other Derivatives" is a classic read. Another good book is Marcos Lopez de Prado's "Advances in Financial Machine Learning."
digitcatphd 5y ago
It’s all about opportunity cost and what your role would be. CFA is generally only applicable to investment management anyone who thinks otherwise is uninformed.
- gunshowmo 5y ago
  Yeah, definitely seems that way from all the feedback I've been getting. The exam is soon enough that I'm going to be getting it over with anyway, but I hope I can find something to do afterwards that isn't in that box.

shubik22 5y ago

General caveat that this is just my opinion and there are many ways to approach this. My view: I would focus far less on building projects and developing on-the-job skills prior to getting a job and far more on improving your interview skills. I'd do that through a combination of leetcode problems, mock interviews, and (most importantly), actual interviews. Without a CS degree or job experience as a software engineer, many companies just won't consider you regardless of how many side projects you have or technologies you can list in the "skills" section of your resume. The companies that will consider you, what will really matter IMO is how you actually perform in the interview. For better or worse, the skills that are necessary to be successful in tech interviews are generally different from on-the-job skills. I would just apply to tons of companies (e.g. try to send out five applications a day, or something along those lines). Your skills as an interviewee will improve as you do interviews, until finally you get an offer you like :). Also, this is often a question of getting one offer, and then telling all the other companies you've applied to that you have an offer with a time limit to accelerate their processes. FOMO is real :) All of this is predicated on being able to get interviews -- I'd expect a low hit rate, but if you're getting zero interviews, you'll need to adjust your approach and either improve your resume/cover letter or try a more personalized approach, like finding opportunities through your network or meetups, etc. Re: jobs, I would apply to entry level positions. I would not apply to internships. I think your probability of getting internships vs. entry-level jobs is only slightly higher, so just go for entry-level. With entry level jobs, you're still going to be hired for your potential (not experience), which good companies recognize. As for your resume, definitely keep it to one page.

gunshowmo 5y ago
Thanks a lot for the detailed reply. Honestly I actually enjoy leetcode-type questions for the most part so I don't mind practicing those at all. I'll take a look at my resume and see how I can restructure it and start sending it out to at least see if I can get an answer back. Cheers!