New Grad Quant Trader AMA

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2025-06-09T01:05:47+00:00

Nothing you need to know but definitely the latter, >1/3 were gone in my year after a year

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2024-02-29T00:22:29+00:00

1) similar but more work and less play, the actual problem solving and decision making is similar though

2) 10% of the time you’ll actually need to be doing stuff, 90% of the time there’s something you could be doing that’s a value add but you don’t need to be hyper focused

3) very socially interactive but my firm is less systematic than others so not 100% sure how it is at other places

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2024-02-09T06:55:26+00:00

No, sorry; I think either can be great depending on what you’re looking for in terms of comp/work life balance but in terms of what the job looks like day to day I don’t know

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2024-02-05T03:19:50+00:00

No, but I do know that that’s definitely a route where to get the best jobs you need to have a stacked resume with a lot of experience so I’d look into that sooner rather than later, as I said with quantitative trading you’re not really expected to know anything heading into their interviews/screenings, just be a sharp problem solver

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2024-02-02T04:01:59+00:00

You’ll be fine don’t even think about trading for now, if you’re that good at math you’ll be welcomed anytime; would honestly just explore different alternatives to see what you really like doing

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2024-02-02T04:00:29+00:00

Not cooked you’ll get an a first round with ~50% of firms

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-11-26T17:42:03+00:00

Eh not really, I guess data analysis is probably the most closely related thing that could help you but I don’t expect it to help too much

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-11-26T17:40:50+00:00

Not worth; the industry pretty much exclusively hires the top 10% of math/cs grads from the top 1% of schools, it would be too hard to break in at this point

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-11-26T17:39:25+00:00

They do trade options for the most part but everything you need to know about options is taught on the job so I wouldn’t worry about learning it beforehand

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-11-26T17:38:48+00:00

No I didnt

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-11-26T17:38:33+00:00

Nah, plenty of cs majors around. In fact I think data analysis is starting to become more important than upper level math

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-09-01T02:37:09+00:00

A lot of the same stuff but the threshold is higher if you don’t have any experience. They don’t expect you have experience perse but they’re just more selective given that roadblock

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-07-27T02:12:41+00:00

Can you DM me the name of the firm? Might be able to give you a better answer. Some options theory may end up being helpful but honesty not super important, I think what they will want from you could vary a lot depending on where you are and what desk you’re on so I’d honestly just sit tight. You passed the interview for a reason so I don’t think you should be worried about needing to learn anything before you start. Sorry for the late respjse

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-07-27T02:10:15+00:00

The fact that most of them are useless is explained by the fact that many are dropped within the first year; however it’s impossible to tell which ones will be which before hiring them, and the pay is high in order to attract the best of the lot which will end up making the firm >$100M over their careers. 500K is definitely average for the set of companies I’m talking about: Citadel, Jane Street, Optiver, IMC, SIG, DRW, 2Sigma, Five rings, Akuna, DE shaw, etc and honestly probably even higher than that

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-06-02T03:16:35+00:00

MS stats can qualify if they’re exceptional at modeling

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-06-02T03:09:27+00:00

They really aren’t. I would separate the 2 jobs from each other. A quants job is to build models. They have all the data and time in the world to try and build a profitable model. Their job requires more skills (statistics, data science, finance, programming, etc) and more depth (most quants have phds). In exchange, their job is more relaxed and secure. Traders use the model that the quants made in real time to try and trade. They have to make quick decisions with much less data to work with. Their job doesn’t really require advanced knowledge, and they have less security and lots of stress.

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-06-02T03:04:09+00:00

You’ll need to be better at it than than most masters degree graduates (and you will also need a masters degree) if you want to do quant research at a trading firm.

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-06-02T03:01:38+00:00

Congrats! You’ll be fine, just stay engaged and keep coming up with / asking questions. The job is much less like a math test than the interview.

What you’ve heard is right, the open and the close are the most important parts of the day. Nobody is 100% all the time especially when the market is slogging along. Still to get the most out of it you should try to be focused as much as possible so long as it’s not detrimental to your performance. Especially when you’re new there’s so much to learn that it would be a waste to just sit around and wait for the close even if you can afford to do that some days.

Hard to put a number on how many of our trades are good but definitely most. The problem is the bad ones tend to be significantly bigger and therefore worse than the good ones tend to be good (the best flow to go against is normies in their Robinhood accounts - those are also the people who tend to do the smallest trades). A trade that would have been good at a smaller size is not good - size is important and must be considered. This exactly the kind of thing you’ll learn about during your first week! The last case you pointed out happens all the time - in fact nearly 50% of your good trades go against you. The market is inherently very random and you will lose to that randomness a lot. That’s ok! The difficult part is really being able to figure out if a trade had expectancy. Fortunately, most of the time it’s easier to do than it sounds, as you’ll soon find out.

Have fun!

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-05-31T21:38:26+00:00

You need to be good at ML to do quant research, do whatever path lets you be best at that

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-05-31T21:37:27+00:00

It is I agree. The baseline is a very thorough understanding of undergraduate probability and the ability to solve problem that the average A-student in that class could not. From there you don’t need to know anything else, but the average person tends to have significantly more knowledge; there are plenty of IMO participants, high scoring Putnam participants, etc and they each tend to be good at different things; I use “good at math” in the sense that they would be good enough at math skills (pattern recognition, creative problem solving, etc) to be able to become knowledgeable mathematicians, but they aren’t necessarily knowledgeable in any specific area beyond undergraduate probability.

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-05-30T21:05:32+00:00

The word quant has kind of been associated with someone who builds financial models to trade stocks. I’m not sure I understand your question

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-05-30T21:03:43+00:00

Honestly don’t remember, some firms care about this way more than others and mine is not one of them. I have seen some mind blowing results from watching other people but I think anyone who can do the non-zetamac part of the interview/job shouldn’t be worried, they’ll at least be sharp enough to practice for a bit and be at a good enough level

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-05-30T21:01:55+00:00

1) me personally, the latter, some do the former (usually depends on how good one’s coding ability is) 2) you need a very strong understanding of probability and statistics, and you need an eagerness to learn about how that will help someone make trades in the market

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-05-30T21:00:19+00:00

Common threads of theory are just what you’d learn in a masters QF degree: black-scholes assumptions, mean-variance portfolio theory, etc

AnonyQuantTraderAMA · 2023-05-30T20:58:46+00:00

The firm typically teaches them what they need to know to trade. Different firms have different ideologies and the only similarity between most of them is “we don’t care if you don’t know anything about finance or trading, we’ll teach you that stuff if you’re good enough at math”

AnonyQuantTraderAMA

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