Pre-college
Born in Russia, poor and socially unadjusted if highly educated family (my grandfather was a young physicist working for the Soviet nuclear project at the time they made the first bomb), elite math school education, decent olympiad performance (I never focused to win a single thing at the national level but was close to that across math/physics/chemistry and various all-subject competitions we had; got some “president’s award for exceptional overall performance” with a decent cash prize attached), went to the best math college in the country (I was really into pure math at the time, and was actually kinda doing 2 colleges at once: Moscow State University as a baseline “official” thing, and Independent University of Moscow (startup by top academics to teach super-advanced math) at nights).
College to PhD
I burnt out mid-college: probably was looking at math as an Opportunity/Path to Success, not a game to have fun at which it is, when I didn’t get some small award I thought I should’ve given the performance in all classes and incredible hard work, I finally got disillusioned. However I didn’t have mental or emotional tools, social support to figure out a plausible alternative, my parents scrambling by at the sidelines of society weren’t able to help, getting dissatisfied after some months of meandering I didn’t find any better way than to force myself to do math again just to have some sort of direction. Shortly after I came up with an idea of going abroad for a PhD in the US (at the time it was a very novel idea for where I was: Russia is not China or India where it’s almost a default option for smart people, barely anybody left, especially for the States; 2 or 3 people from my ~400 people cohort at my elite college went for the US PhD, I later found out; going abroad become a bit more widespread in the few years since). My biggest mistake was not really doing any research despite the highly advanced level I was at: due to the lack of social skills and background I haven’t had or made or knew how to use close enough connections or mentors, despite hanging around the heart of Russian math life, and as a result misguidedly focused on endless advanced coursework rather than actual research (for context, some of my peers who were walking similar double-college path and were at comparable level in various classes started publishing mid-college). So, with good credentials but no research done and likely mediocre recommendations due to failure to build really good connections to professors, I ended up at a second-tier Math PhD at the University of Michigan.
PhD
Applying for a PhD for me ultimately was just a way to shake things up somehow and escape my miserable life in Russia: I didn’t know in advance it will end up being the best decision of my life. ~$25K/year grad student stipend for me at the time felt like being rich: I even saved a few K to buy a car after my first year. During my second year I had the luckiest day of my life: I had an epiphany that “I don’t have to do math anymore” (I was kinda forcing myself to, as saw no other way, since the mid-college disillusionment), and started walking fast toward non-academic career and never looked back. I didn’t have the skills or awareness to be able to just quit with masters as I now advise people in similar circumstances, so I ended up switching to some more practical sounding “financial math” (it was still esoteric nonsense and waste of time, but guess better than even worse esoteric nonsense I really couldn’t get myself to do anymore), while learning coding and data science and finance and economics while finally getting real and efficient about research now that I had very clear goal of publishing enough papers to graduate asap. Given more focused effort on writing papers, I ended up winning “the best thesis in mathematical finance” small international award, despite me starting in a field late and kinda accidentally.
I applied for Jane Street quant trading mid-PhD on a whim before doing any prep or learning anything - got to the onsite but was utterly unprepared for betting games. Fall of my 4th year I applied widely for internships, did a few onsites with prop shops, but ultimately only got a 2nd tier bank desk quant offer and QuantLab offer in Texas which paid slightly less (and didn’t even do onsite so sounded fishy). Had a great time at a bank, strong core front office group I was in didn’t have headcount, I was offered some CCAR/PPNR risk nonsense role that I declined. Went through full interviewing cycle again fall of my last year, applied ~100 companies, talked to many dozens, had a few onsites with props (SIG, CTC, TMG …) but came up short. One of the senior guys I had coffees with during my internship had an opening in a core front office desk, so I ended up taking that position.
I’m still a bit unsure what to make of that interviewing performance, especially in light of later making it to Citadel and being widely viewed as very smart by coworkers even there (though it ended up being a pretty sh*tty part of Citadel in retrospect). In light of various other facts in my life I tend to think me not being smart enough might not have been the constraint, though of course everyone is heavily biased to think this way. Fit/personality issues likely was a factor: I was/is underconfident, but also was stiff/not very personable during that time - this isn’t my original idea, but rather a conclusion after being told that when later being considered for Citadel they added a few additional “soft” dinner/drinks interviews as they were concerned about my personality/fit, wanted to know “I’m not a serial killer”; if this was an issue at that time it must’ve been a bigger issue couple years prior when I was getting my first role. 2nd tier school played a role. A fellow grad student at the same school who was doing esoteric stuff similar to what I was doing originally and never switched to math finance ended up at SIG and had a much smoother career since. I just don’t know.
First 2 jobs
See more details here