Hi All, Iam currently working in the field of quantitative finance. How important is Technical skills for a financial engineer? If a financial engineer doesnt know technical skills or if he is not offered an opportunity, will it be a drawback? If technical skills are neccessary, what languages or databases are recommended?

>>I am currently working in the field of quantitative finance>>How important is Technical skills for a financial engineer? ??unless you're the receptionist, wouldn't you have noticed what the other folks in the office are doing ?

I just wanted to ask how this profile is defined in General. This profile is still uncommon in India. So I would like to know as to how I can improve my skillsets. In my workplace finance guys dont involve in programming.

most people use c++, a scripting language like perl or python, a stat package like splus or matlab, and a SQL compliant database. if you work in the field of "quantitative finance" and don't know this what do you really do? it is hard to build a house without a hammer.

What do you mean by technical? Math? Programming? I would have thought a quant role was at least 90% technical? So you're screwed then . Unless you change jobs . Receptionist?

Thanks axs. Let me make my question more specific. Will quants develop the algorithms and specifications in paper and give them to the programmmers to code or do they develop the math libraries themselves? Obviously they cant involve themselves in things like GUI programming and deviate from their core job. Right now I just develop the specifications in paper and give it to the coders to develop and later I test them. As a financial engineer should I go ahead and develop at least the math libraries instead of just being a pure finance guy? I know C,C++,java. How do things happen in quant finance industry in general? Iam not a receptionist. I just wanted to know how things actually work.

Most the time you would either code up your own models and then slot them into a bigger OO system designed by more competent techies but some people will simply pass a paper to techies with some maths skills but they tend to just cut and paste formulae out of books and so may not have the best understanding of the work which won't translate too well.