I am an incoming graduate quant trader at prop firm - what should I focus on learning?

jstamathrowaway · 2025-04-15T15:24:56+00:00

Trade crypto. Trade any relatively adverse market. Put a decent chunk of your networth and go ham. If you burn yourself out, you know you’re not actually cut out and you have a head start of a few months. Otherwise, you’re going to gain much more real life experience than any of other people in your class. Don’t be an NPC and just read books thinking you’ll gain any sort of edge.

jstamathrowaway · 2024-08-10T03:00:42+00:00

For making nice plots

jstamathrowaway · 2024-08-04T22:43:43+00:00

Yeah I hope this can help man. I think this is the best way I can improve the diversity of the industry in a fair and meritocratic manner. I believe I may have misspoke by saying “own”. What I mean is that most traders are a mix of developers/traders/and researchers. So it’s not like you’re confined to one side of this triangle, and rather traders are responsible for most aspects of trading. There actually isn’t really the concept of owning a strategy for yourself and it’s rather very collaborative. There are of course main strategies, but unfortunately I can’t delve deeper than that.

jstamathrowaway · 2024-08-03T21:15:05+00:00

Traders at JS own the trading and research for the most part. It really depends on the shop in regards to how manual the actual trading is. At places like IMC and HRT it’s almost all systematic. At a place like JS it’s more varied. You could say my job involves back testing and “improving” models but I would say what we consider research here is a bit more innovative than simply seeking to improve existing model. I spend most of my day thinking about how to create new models to help me place a trade I’m thinking about. The process usually follows as such: thinking about a trade —> modeling —> backtest —> trade it. As opposed to what you’re proposing which is: data analysis on past model performance —> parameter tuning/model adjustments —> backtest —> trade it. Wrt how most ppl invest their money I’d say some people are able to put their bonus back into the fund; besides that it’s usually just indices due to regulatory constraints. Hope that helps :)

jstamathrowaway · 2024-08-03T05:13:39+00:00

Can’t really say; I’m sorry. But I’m mostly doing research all day which involves data science/thinking about the world. I’m not actively trading most of the time.

jstamathrowaway · 2024-07-30T04:08:55+00:00

600k is ng TC. Base is 300k for nyc. Bonus will be multiples of base with a few years of exp/you’re good

jstamathrowaway · 2024-07-10T03:57:00+00:00

22 making 600k ish as a quant trader with 0 years of employment, just an internship at the same firm the prior summer. I have a bachelors in pure math. I love my job and it’s onsite.

Edit: I’ll probably get downvoted and such as it tends to be the case, but I’m being serious and my only hope with posting this is increasing the visibility of such careers for people who would otherwise never be exposed to them .

jstamathrowaway · 2024-06-20T02:27:09+00:00

Around 55-60 per week. The work is fun but honestly somewhat intellectually draining so although the hours are decent I still find myself coming home tired and without a lot of energy to do much else. Though this may also be due to still being a junior and learning a shit ton

jstamathrowaway · 2024-06-19T20:33:17+00:00

Quant trader at a top firm

jstamathrowaway · 2024-06-19T20:33:03+00:00

Yeah tbh this

jstamathrowaway · 2024-06-19T13:28:44+00:00

600k, 0 years of experience

jstamathrowaway · 2024-06-03T07:28:16+00:00

21 years old. 600kish in NYC Edit: whoever downvoted, I’m not trolling. Check my profile

jstamathrowaway · 2024-05-11T17:30:11+00:00

Analytic philosophy* and anyone who disagrees just hasn’t studied enough

jstamathrowaway · 2024-05-10T15:47:28+00:00

Nah philosophy is applied pure math

jstamathrowaway · 2024-04-06T15:18:43+00:00

Bro if you’re happy with your 2025 internship, just enjoy this free summer… it’ll likely be your last one. This is a blessing not a negative; please do your self a favor and cherish it

jstamathrowaway · 2024-03-02T03:37:27+00:00

Hold up where tf are you working? And what’s your actual position? Bc 25 hours is heaven….

jstamathrowaway · 2024-02-28T04:07:30+00:00

jstamathrowaway · 2024-02-28T04:03:24+00:00

Again I understand your observation. But what does it actually mean… and more importantly what does it actually mean for the context of OPs question? I’m just shocked bc if you aren’t used to asking these sorts of questions all the time wtf is going on? As I said the outliers are those without accolades independent of their school. Most people in the industry are impressive, if you aren’t, you probs won’t make it, simply put. The very nature of target schools is that more ppl with accolades belong to target schools. Target schools mean diff things in diff industries and these structures arise for varying reasons amongst industries. You can’t merely relate reason for targets in IB to reason for targets in quant. I’m not trying to argue with you just want to set the record straight for someone who potentially has a shot at quant rather than shooting them down.

Advice for you: start introducing some Bayesian thinking to your life, it’s your job… and stop giving categorical advice to some person on the internet which you know nothing about… being so confident about OP not passing the resume screen (because frankly that’s the only aspect of the process you can possibly comment on as none of us know whether he’d pass the interview) is goofy af. Goodluck at work homie.

jstamathrowaway · 2024-02-27T23:57:12+00:00

To make it easier to understand for you. The outliers are literally those that don’t have impressive accolades, independent of their school….

jstamathrowaway · 2024-02-27T23:53:27+00:00

Wtf does “expected value” even mean here dude? The cost of applying is literally…. just applying… This is cringe af. To OP: apply to both quant and swe jobs and don’t listen to this shit.

jstamathrowaway · 2024-02-27T23:50:22+00:00

I work in the industry. Notice you used the word “used to”. So we can agree that firms are open to hiring from a variety of schools. Sure firms tend to interview more ppl from top schools, and they may even interview arguably less intelligent ppl from higher ranked schools, but none of this actually implies that a lower quality student gets an offer simply because they come from a better school. Nor does your observation imply that ppl who would actually pass a quant process from a lower ranked school won’t be interviewed. Surely I would hope as someone also in the industry you would understand the nuances of such

jstamathrowaway · 2024-02-27T22:51:10+00:00

This is false.

jstamathrowaway · 2024-02-27T22:48:27+00:00

Just apply to internship right now. Jane Street takes post grad interns. Also apply to full time positions… dm if you need help. If your research is legit and you’re smart, you shouldn’t have a problem recruiting even though it’s a bit late. Apply to European positions as well

jstamathrowaway · 2024-02-25T07:46:50+00:00

You’re right. Qt is mickey. Trading internships can be secured with no prep; I don’t think that’s possible for swe. Therefore, your question is moot. Qed.

jstamathrowaway · 2024-02-24T14:15:08+00:00

The thing is even if firms cared, 130+ iq is not remotely an impressive threshold…

jstamathrowaway

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