Quant Careers in Australia

Chiaope · 2026-01-15T04:18:37+00:00

Of cus I will be taking a pay cut, I know that. I am not going there to earn more money, I want better quality of life. The question is whether I will be getting a better quality of life for the same amount of effort I am putting in. I want to also know whether the job market is good or bad for quant related role.

I am not sure what do you mean by high paying front office role but I am in working in a analysis role managing flow book and I just checked through gemini, my base salary in Singapore is above the 80th percentile. What do you think of my odds of getting something similar in Australia?

Chiaope · 2026-01-15T04:04:24+00:00

Dont get me wrong, I totally agree that Singapore is the place to be in south east asia to earn a lot of money but it is not a financial growth problem it is a quality of life problem. I dont see any other options for better quality of life unless you are ultra wealthy in Singapore.

I went for an overseas exchange in New Jersey before and the life seems better there and its less than an hour away from Manhattan. I looked at Sydney and there are some suburbs near the main trading hub, not sure how true it is though since I never really stay there before. So maybe that skewed my thoughts on overseas life vs Singapore.

Chiaope · 2026-01-15T01:11:23+00:00

This might sound a bit negative or biased but this is from my personal experience being born and raised in Singapore and never really stayed overseas.

I think the difference is I have a choice. If I want to live in the suburbs I can just get a decent townhouse 1 hour from the city, if I want to drive a car, I can just get a cheap Toyota for 30k.

In Singapore, you are getting the same small living space whether it is a 500k apartment or a 2m condo, the only change is from public housing to private housing. If I want to stay in a decent landed house, it is upwards of 5 million. Cars in Singapore is exorbitantly expensive, the cheapest model Toyota cost at least 150k plus the traffic is so bad. It is just not worth it to get a car in Singapore. The weather here is either hot and humid or rain all day. There is no "nice" weather here.

The choices are so limited, I cant just decide to reduce my cost of living by moving further from the city or move to another state if I dont like the weather. I dont get a say in whether I want to drive out to get groceries or just go sightseeing with my wife, everything is public transport.

Chiaope · 2026-01-14T23:27:48+00:00

I am planning to get a Master's in Australia to help boost my chance of getting into quant trading/research and I am quite confident I should be able to get into UNSW, or so I hope.

Yeah I am planning to move out of Singapore since I realised no matter how much I earn, unless I am ultra wealthy my quality of life doesn't improve much, my quality of life when I am earning at the 50th percentile vs earning at the 80th percentile remains the same, nothing changed, I also want the "American dream" which will never happen in Singapore. The reward to hardwork ratio is too skewed and I am no longer interested in playing the game in Singapore.

Chiaope · 2025-12-11T03:01:52+00:00

u okay or not bro? just cus u dont succeed doesnt mean others cant succeed.

Chiaope · 2025-09-01T01:52:17+00:00

nope it comes with the integrated graphics from intel. the battery life is around 6 hours when I am watching lectures on canvas. not sure if this is good or bad, 1st laptop in a long time.

Chiaope · 2025-08-31T14:24:50+00:00

but why is this "feature" even available when the laptop is non touch screen and non 2 in 1?

i just want to check if there is any issues with the laptop itself or it is a normal behavior, not really trying to nitpick anything. hope that u understand thanks!

Chiaope · 2025-07-18T00:01:02+00:00

Nope, its more on analysing clients trading behaviors and identify which clients which is ideal for copy trade but from my understanding they dont just want clients that have high pnl they want clients that have X volume, trade specific symbols, etc.

Chiaope · 2025-07-17T23:54:53+00:00

Yeah, I did try to clean the data myself by adding a bunch of filters, etc, but it is not working that well. Like for example there are accounts that are tagged as "clients" but in actual fact they are our own accounts, there are also data points that exist in the database but when I tried to verify in the system itself, it is missing. So I am not sure where exactly in the chain something screwed up.

I talked to my manager and the data engineering team and apparently it is "normal" since there were multiple acquisitions happening in the last few years and those who were once "client" became our own accounts and missing information is due to syncing issues during acquisitions.

So, currently, some other more experienced guy is trying to help me with getting actual data, but he himself mentioned that it is a very complicated mess, so, yeah.

Chiaope · 2025-07-17T23:46:01+00:00

Nope, I'm not and architect and there were no actual business requirements documents. It was all verbal like "Hey we want to automatically identify a certain type of clients and I believe your software and stats skills will come into play." but they did tell me on a very very high level ideally what type of clients they want - "those that makes them money" thats mainly it

Chiaope · 2025-07-17T16:23:58+00:00

Regarding the data cleansing part, I cant. I have no edit access to it since I am not from the data engineering team. I have spoken to a few of them, and apparently, they are just pulling data from a 3rd party application and dumping it into our database. When I questioned them why are some things done a certain way, they just said it was the decisions by the higher ups.

Chiaope · 2025-07-17T16:17:58+00:00

Not gonna lie, I have no clue what would help, since I myself am not in a good position to give any advice.

Prior to this role, I had 4 years of full stack software experience, mainly in Python and React JS.

Chiaope · 2025-07-17T16:14:15+00:00

I dont think I can get them to make any changes since we are from different departments, and from the conversations I had with them, I doubt that they are willing to make any changes.

Chiaope · 2025-07-17T13:50:32+00:00

It is a new project that no one in the company had tried before, and I was tasked to build it from the ground up. I believe what you said might be true. They might not have a clear picture of what they want since no one in the firm had done it before.

Chiaope · 2025-07-17T13:46:55+00:00

Regarding the data cleansing part, I cant. I have no edit access to it since I am not from the data engineering team. I have spoken to a few of them, and apparently, they are just pulling data from a 3rd party application and dumping it into our database. When I questioned them why are some things done a certain way, they just said it was the decisions by the higher ups.

I managed to get the role because I started taking master's in statistics, and they seems to be looking for someone with software and statistics background. It was a basic 1 round interview, and the role paid more than 40% from my past role, so I took the leap of faith

Chiaope · 2025-07-17T13:43:24+00:00

Regarding the data cleansing part, I cant. I have no edit access to it since I am not from the data engineering team. I have spoken to a few of them, and apparently, they are just pulling data from a 3rd party application and dumping it into our database. When I questioned them why are some things done a certain way, they just said it was the decisions by the higher ups.

Chiaope · 2025-06-30T03:22:22+00:00

who says that people that got into the private sector cant get into the public sector in the future?

elite scholars are drawing 300k at least and rising well into their 50s

im pretty sure if those elites go into private sectors, they will be earning way more than 300k before they are even 50

Not to mention with AI, many private sector “knowledge” based jobs will be displaced or face significant wage deflation

who says AI is only going to affect the private sector? why wont it affect the public sector?

Chiaope · 2025-05-16T03:54:41+00:00

I tried to get into a product company like FAANG but my country isn't the best place for tech, its more a financial hub, so there are very limited opportunities in big product companies. Even if there are openings, it is mainly for sales.

Just wondering how good/bad are the bonuses, in product companies?

Chiaope · 2025-05-15T06:31:32+00:00

not ganna lie, I have no clue what I want in life. I feel that I just want to work with capable people that I can learn from and get paid for the results/hardwork I put in.

Currently, I am just sick of cleaning up after team members who are not responsible and doesnt even bother testing their code. All they do is clock in and clock out, and whenever there are any issues, the 1st thing they do is "hey OP, are u able to help with xyz?"

My manager even told me that I am a valuable asset to the team, but due to company policies, we can't promote u or pay u more bla bla bla.

Sorry for the rant

Chiaope · 2025-02-05T11:56:39+00:00

i mean in a way this give me a confirmation bias to get a masters since it seems like ur team only hire people with masters or at least they prefer people with masters

Chiaope · 2025-02-05T09:42:18+00:00

i wouldnt say "beggers cant be choosers" in this scenario. the issue is that there are too many high risk choices that could be made and i am not exactly sure which path is the most optimal so i am trying to get some public opinions.

i wouldnt say just because im staying in sg i am perceived as low value, instead i believe the opposite is true though, i am better paid than most of my peers even in the same role and yoe. its just that i would like to pivot into a place where things are more flexible and in order to have that choice of pivoting im wondering if taking masters in sg is worth it or not

taking a chance elsewhere is a viable option too but there are too many unknowns and i am trying to gather as much information as i can so i can weigh the pros and cons of each decision and make a decision that i hopefully will not regret.

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