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vazza
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Posts: 2
Joined: June 30th, 2009, 5:07 am

Buy Side Data Scientists

April 2nd, 2020, 3:11 pm

Hi,
Does anyone here work as a data scientist on the buy side? It's an area I've been intrugued by for a while and I was hoping someone could answer a few of my questions on the nature of the work and prospects: 

1. How much of the work is operational (e.g. answering client queries) vs. project/goal based work?
2. Do you work mostly with business types or your peers?
3. Have you/your colleagues always been in DS or did you start in other fields?
4. It feels like everywhere you look there are free DS courses, programming courses etc. Do you think the field is getting saturated? Are the barriers to entry (and exit) too low because of this?
5. What skill set makes a good buy side data scientist?
 
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tags
Posts: 3159
Joined: February 21st, 2010, 12:58 pm

Re: Buy Side Data Scientists

July 26th, 2021, 1:52 pm

So no one has ever replied here?
My input may well nott be that relevant, but here it is.
during the past few years, I have seen many quantitative analysts/developers (aka options guys) in the commodities space at trading houses and hedge funds moving to "data science". Basically, the headcount of quantitative analysts/developers has been going down while some data science opportunities have emerged on the trading floor. What those "data scientists" do and how they actually do it, whom they interact with. etc... depends very much on each position (which may relate to the still blurred definition of "data science"?).
One observation though is that it often looks like "exporation" as management doesn't seem to know what those new "data science" teams can achieve (in the context I have seen at least) and they (management) rely on them (the datascientists) to set their own goals. I have also seen several occurrences where "data scientists" projects were just terminated because management judged afterwards that achievements/returns/outputs were not sufficient.
BTW I came across @vazza thread/question after I read One of Goldman Sachs' top quants quit to create an AI platform (apologies for the source) and I was searching a place to discuss about that trend I have seen where quants (options guys and automated trading as well) move to data porject/jobs lato sensu. Thank you.
 
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ISayMoo
Posts: 2332
Joined: September 30th, 2015, 8:30 pm

Re: Buy Side Data Scientists

August 30th, 2021, 8:00 pm

If you want to do Data Science, don't do it in finance, do it in a tech company.
  1. The problem space is larger. (You may even end up doing finance! but lots of other things are possible too.)
  2. The working conditions are WAY better.
  3. The culture is less toxic (unless we're talking Amazon).
  4. Working hours are shorter, so per hour you're paid just as well or better than in finance.
  5. You will have access to more compute and a better tech stack.
  6. No trader prima donnas to handle.
 
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snowde
Posts: 9
Joined: December 14th, 2021, 4:15 pm

Re: Buy Side Data Scientists

December 16th, 2021, 11:39 am

There a wide range of institutions with buy-side data-science experts, I can list and rate a few here.

ADIA Global Science Lab ★★★★★
Arabesque ★★★★★
Capital Fund Management ★★★★★
DE Shaw ★★★★★
Goldman CoreAI Research ★★★★★
JP Morgan AI Research ★★★★★
Millennium ★★★★★
MAN Group ★★★★★
Two Sigma ★★★★★
Balyasny, Fidelity etc, etc.