As i'm viewing this forum since few months, i never asked me this question. In my mind, a quant was doing some models, it was some research job , maybe this is a french view, as many quants here have made the ENS.as fast as i have interviews in bank, i undestand the work at Front office, but now that i'm looking the career forum, i saw this:Front Office Interest Rate/FX Quant - £80-150,000+Excellent Bonusand some other post with same notes.So, as i see that, i'm asking if a quant is playing on the market or just doing research. If he is doing research about models etc.. how can he readch a +Excellent Bonus??Thx

I'd like to get an idea of what Quants do too. Are they always working in the front office, directly for the traders? What kind of software do they generate? Are they like continuously adding functionality and improving on a large system? or maybe writing a series of little programs that get used to calculate prices and then are thrown away? Would be nice to have a link to Aaron's post..

If the job title is "quant" ppauper is more likely than not to be right.Broadly though, I define a quant by our skills first, and our role second, so asking me what quants do as a job is kind of like asking what one sport does a fast runner play.Some quants are traders who are good at numbers (most of these are in FI), some quants structure and sell, some do back-office research, some on the front office focus on pricing and hedging, while some analyze prop opportunities.A "Quant" is more differentiated by ability than responsibility. A good quant can do everything one "traditional" finance professional does and do it better because of the ability to think precisely and numerically.

1/@ppauper :but i heard that 'sales' were selling products2/is a trader assistant could be considered as a quant?