What was your experience with pure-systematic prop shops/hedge funds like 2-sigma, DE Shaw, etc.? Is a math PhD and fin math publications not "good enough" for them, because they are looking for substantial ML expertise?
shaw, pdt never talked to me, ts I interviewed once right out of school and guess was a bit unprepared (looking back at it, always indulged my preference to learning new interesting stuff and never actually grinded every single interview question the way I probably should have to max out my chances - never was an overoptimizer..) and failed first interview on what in retrospect was an easy problem (no I'm not too dumb in general, and went all the way with other good shops like JS or SIG, among others) to never have heard from them again.
couple ts quants I know are indeed stats phds. shaw I think likes math phds but wants something better than top-10 phd.
hrt never talked to me.
looking back at it, pry the only other sys places I had at least some interviews with were Cubist and Voleon.
props were a realistic option, I went to onsites with many of the good places but didn't luck out (looking back at what I later learned were Citadel's concerns about hiring me, seems plausible it's personality fit that broke the tie with the props).
dunno if it's mimetic contagion (after years of looking up to "real finance people" in non-sys places) or what, but roles I could be excited about (doesn't mean I'd be a good fit) in finance are more "real finance" roles like investment analyst - and I just don't see a sensible path there (at some level of passion I could've done something hail mary.. but don't feel I'm there), and my experience with tolerance of crazy hours and stress at Citadel was quite negative (though seems my own attitude might've contributed to making the job feel more stressful, will see in the future). from that perspective, committing to purely technical pigeonhole for life in a sys shop, (correct me if I'm wrong!) even assuming I can make it anywhere decent this time around (after failing post-phd and post-bank), doesn't seem particularly exciting. like, yeah, sure, that would be local improvement, but guess given where I am in life I want to go for more variance.
the appeal of tech is what seems like potential wealth of opportunities, from transitioning to product management, to founding, to some angel investing on the side - or even just to management of relatively sizable teams.
still running tests and thinking and doing therapy and exploring. eg unclear yet to what extent I can really like tech, or whether I'm tempted enough by softer stuff to try something potentially feasible like consulting instead.
What was your experience with pure-systematic prop shops/hedge funds like 2-sigma, DE Shaw, etc.? Is a math PhD and fin math publications not "good enough" for them, because they are looking for substantial ML expertise?
shaw, pdt never talked to me, ts I interviewed once right out of school and guess was a bit unprepared (looking back at it, always indulged my preference to learning new interesting stuff and never actually grinded every single interview question the way I probably should have to max out my chances - never was an overoptimizer..) and failed first interview on what in retrospect was an easy problem (no I'm not too dumb in general, and went all the way with other good shops like JS or SIG, among others) to never have heard from them again.
couple ts quants I know are indeed stats phds. shaw I think likes math phds but wants something better than top-10 phd.
hrt never talked to me.
looking back at it, pry the only other sys places I had at least some interviews with were Cubist and Voleon.
props were a realistic option, I went to onsites with many of the good places but didn't luck out (looking back at what I later learned were Citadel's concerns about hiring me, seems plausible it's personality fit that broke the tie with the props).
urgh so agree with your commentary of non-systematic places for quants.
this guy wrote about it here and it's spot on: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/hedge-fund/discretionary-vs-systematic-quant-roles
Are you at a systematic shop now or in tech?
thx for the link, not exactly surprised but glad to hear this is the consensus.
I'm sitting out my non-compete enjoying some life for the first time in years and thinking about what I want to do.
leaning tech.
my feelings are kinda similar to
https://www.efinancialcareers.com/news/2022/01/low-pay-quants-banking
dunno if it's mimetic contagion (after years of looking up to "real finance people" in non-sys places) or what, but roles I could be excited about (doesn't mean I'd be a good fit) in finance are more "real finance" roles like investment analyst - and I just don't see a sensible path there (at some level of passion I could've done something hail mary.. but don't feel I'm there), and my experience with tolerance of crazy hours and stress at Citadel was quite negative (though seems my own attitude might've contributed to making the job feel more stressful, will see in the future). from that perspective, committing to purely technical pigeonhole for life in a sys shop, (correct me if I'm wrong!) even assuming I can make it anywhere decent this time around (after failing post-phd and post-bank), doesn't seem particularly exciting. like, yeah, sure, that would be local improvement, but guess given where I am in life I want to go for more variance.
the appeal of tech is what seems like potential wealth of opportunities, from transitioning to product management, to founding, to some angel investing on the side - or even just to management of relatively sizable teams.
still running tests and thinking and doing therapy and exploring. eg unclear yet to what extent I can really like tech, or whether I'm tempted enough by softer stuff to try something potentially feasible like consulting instead.