January 15th, 2011, 6:02 pm
Thank you for your detailed response and frattyquant for your insight also, this is exactly along the lines I was thinking. By less job security I assume you mean the HF? I know both can kick you out if you underperform which I am naturally a bit apprehensive about, so I really don't want to bite on more than I can chew and end up with a failure on my CV a few months down the line. Although I suppose the interview procedure would have weeded me out by now if they had any concerns.QuoteOriginally posted by: Costeanu882ad,To me it looks clear the HF job is better. The bank job that you describe is not of a quant; you would never work on a model, only on moving data from one database to another one, invoking some quant-developed analytics, creating some reports, migrating some trades from one pricer to another one. A lot of routine stuff and once in a while something challenging and fun. From here, if you are bright, you may move a few years down the road into a quant position, but many people don't; I often see people who still work in such a position after 5 or 10 years. Of course, you can become a manager, and your pay will go up. But don't expect to have a lot of fun. In the hedge fund, it looks to me like you'll have some fun. 15 years from now, in a bank you might be a manager over 200 people, and pocket more than 1 mil a year. But the job will consist in politics; you may find it to be fun or not, it depends on your personality. If you start in a hf, on the other hand, with a bit of luck, and with some hard work, if you learned the ropes, you'll make 1 mil a year or more with only 5 people reporting to you, for example. Less politics, more fun. And of course, less job security. Go for the HF. And enjoy it. Best,V.