QuoteOriginally posted by: playerA friend of mine managedto get a job as a quant with basicpay of £80kHe has no expereince of working in finnce and has on C++ knowledge.B4 you ask he is an extremly talented physicistDo you think that he got an offer despite his inexperience in finance and no knowledge of C++, becausehe was an extremely talented physicist? Did the hiring manager say that? How talented he was in physics? What was his achievement in physics?

I didnt say he got the job because he was a talented physisct. All i said was that he was one. Why did I say that....because everryone ( if you're gonig to be pedantic...replace the word everyone with "some people") would be writing in asking about his credentials.As for his talents trust me he is good.....Whether this means he will be an expert in finance I dont know...but I'm sure he will

QuoteOriginally posted by: player...As for his talents trust me he is good.....Whether this means he will be an expert in finance I dont know...but I'm sure he willI worked on a project with a software dev. guy who was an ex-physicist who was really good. He had no other backing in programming/finance, but he understood the math and algorithmic concepts instantly. Not to be overly-general, but it seems to me that physicists train to be conceptual thinkers with lots of math. Reminds me: I had an acquaintance who runs an engineering firm, he claimed that he would hire anyone whose major course of study was geology. He felt that they were stronger in the concept of process, and were good at analytic thinking.-t.

Goldmans use their own language designed by one of their boss man quants. It is called S-LANG or Slang

QuoteOriginally posted by: StrangyGoldmans use their own language designed by one of their boss man quants. It is called S-LANG or SlangThat's fascinating! Does anyone have more details?-t.

QuoteOriginally posted by: StrangyGoldmans use their own language designed by one of their boss man quants. It is called S-LANG or SlangAnswered my own question:http://space.mit.edu/~davis/slang/-t.

I highly doubt that this is the same language. the slang you link to is used by a bunch of unix programs to handle terminal input/output. and it is open source etc, hardly reasonable to open source a inhouse developed language, that would most probably be proprietary.

Actually, this S-Lang is a way to add extensions to existing c applications. One of the things you can do is add complex datatypes without having to manage the memory. It's not just for unix, it works directly with pc applications (it's used to add scripting capability to the 'jed' text editor) or to cygwin applications on pcs. I was just assuming that the original poster was wrong about it being proprietary to Goldman, or maybe that this is used as an extension language to a proprietary system that was developed in-house.-t.

QuoteOriginally posted by: playerA friend of mine managedto get a job as a quant with basicpay of £80kHe has no expereince of working in finnce and has on C++ knowledge.B4 you ask he is an extremly talented physicistJust wondering, where did he get his PhD? and how did he demonstrate his talent in the interview? how did his CV look like prior to joining GS?Thanks,

QuoteOriginally posted by: playerA friend of mine managedto get a job as a quant with basicpay of £80kHe has no expereince of working in finnce and has on C++ knowledge.B4 you ask he is an extremly talented physicist £80k as a starting salary, bullshit.

I share BunnyLe's scepticism about 80K pounds at GS for a new entrant to the market, though that is quite plausible if you take dollars for their NY people and convert at the right rate.Also I know for a fact that you can earn more than 80K in your first year as a quant in London, we got them there, but it is not the average salary at all.

I am less doubtful of the 80K. Its been two years since I did anything at that end, but I would say at that time four to five banks were paying £65K basic fairly often (of which GS were one), and it is not too much of a progession for an £80K offer, especially if the person had a couple of banks competing for them.

QuoteOriginally posted by: otorneHi, Entry-level quant salaries seem to be anywhere between 30k and 100k. Any thoughts on what the determining factors are ? Thanks.I'm disheartened to note that no-one has tried to correct/dispute the 30k? I would say this can be more like 20k...

30K exists as a data point, though of course it's in the tails.The factors are a function of several thinggs, like size of bank your educational level, ability to program in a way that doesn't cause others to laugh out loud, and being prepped well for interviews.Then there's Barclays Capital whoa) we don't act forb) are apparently throwing more money than anyone else at people they want. The two terms are not unrelated I suspect given what I hear of their recruitment process...Banks will bid for you in an auction at entry level if you are really very good, but they hate this a lot.