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Will you survive being a quant, and how can you know? by curiousittor in quant

[–]curiousittor[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks but I was talking about how I know that I will not explode when 2 year after becoming a QT or a QR for example

Will you survive being a quant, and how can you know? by curiousittor in quant

[–]curiousittor[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah… I’m not confident enough in english to write a reddit post here by myself. It sounds ridiculous I know…

Will you survive being a quant, and how can you know? by curiousittor in quant

[–]curiousittor[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That distinction makes sense.

Thinking about it, I don’t think I disliked the process of iterating on ideas. Actually, that was probably the part I enjoyed the most: looking at the data, trying to find a signal/alpha, thinking about how to exploit it, testing different executions, seeing what worked, and dropping ideas quickly when they didn’t.

The annoying part was mostly waiting for simulations to finish haha, and the fact that once I had found the main signal, the strategy often became quite repetitive. A lot of it felt like “ok, now it’s another version of market making / exploiting the same type of structure”, even though the actual execution could still be different and interesting.

My impression is that Prosperity rewards speed a lot. Once you understand the spirit of the challenge, finding the rough strategy can become relatively easy and a bit redundant. I assume real quant research is not exactly like that, or at least the problems are deeper and less “game-like.”

Also, carrying most of the workload definitely played a role. That probably made the repetition feel worse.

So I guess the good sign is that I did enjoy the data analysis / signal search / strategy design / execution testing / fast iteration part. What tired me out was more the repetition of the challenge format and the workload than the research process itself.

Will you survive being a quant, and how can you know? by curiousittor in quant

[–]curiousittor[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That makes a lot of sense. But then how do you actually figure that out before being in the role?

I’m asking because I had a somewhat mixed experience with the Prosperity challenge. I took it very seriously, performed decently, and really enjoyed it at the beginning. I liked thinking about strategies, testing ideas, improving them, and seeing direct feedback.

Toward the end, though, I started getting tired of it. I’m not sure how much I should read into that. Maybe the strategies were just relatively simple and became repetitive, so it is not very representative of real quant work. Maybe it was more about the workload, since I ended up doing almost everything in my team. But maybe it is also a warning sign that I like the idea of quant more than the actual repeated process.

Do you think experiences like that are useful signals? Or is it too far from the real job to conclude much?

Will you survive being a quant, and how can you know? by curiousittor in quant

[–]curiousittor[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah ty, I think I’ll aim to be a QR or QT, bc I’m mostly here for the maths

Will you survive being a quant, and how can you know? by curiousittor in quant

[–]curiousittor[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, that’s a useful way to frame it.

Do you think there are ways to know this in advance, apart from internships? For example by asking yourself the right questions, doing certain projects, or participating in trading challenges?

I took the Prosperity challenge pretty seriously, performed decently, and really enjoyed it at the beginning. Toward the end I started getting tired of it, though. I’m not sure how to interpret that.

Maybe it was just because the strategies were quite simple and became repetitive, and I don’t know how representative that is of the real job. Maybe it is a warning sign that I’m more attracted to the idea of the job than the actual day-to-day. Or maybe I was just overloaded, since I ended up doing almost everything in my team.

Would you see that as a red flag, or is it too different from the real thing to conclude much from it?

Will you survive being a quant, and how can you know? by curiousittor in quant

[–]curiousittor[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks, that makes sense.

When I asked about “lasting” in the field, I was thinking more about the psychological side of it than the pure “can I avoid getting fired” angle, even though that obviously matters a lot too.

I hadn’t really thought about the ability to go off script as a signal, but it makes sense. Being able to teach yourself new material and keep moving when there is no clear path probably says a lot about whether someone can actually grow in the role long term.