whats ur background?

"use time series and analyze micro-market structure" = technical analysis

It all depends on whether you want to do programming (possibly for the rest of your career). If you don't mind, then 2 seems a good choice. Otherwise, take 1.

Tzheng may be right about time series being technical anlaysis, but probably not. Some of the most quant work currently being done is in time series.My methodology for comparing entry level ejobs is tough on ignoring job titles, but big on what group you are in.1) Sounds good, and one way to tell is it's TA or quant work is to look at the mathematical rogour of the questions they asked at interview.2) Run away, don't walk. Of course the group loves you, I suspect that because they rarely find smart people willing to take a crap job in IT. "sitting near the traders" is one of the standard lies to suck you into a pothole. The head trader will have been bitching about how his IT people are outwitted by any maths more sophisticated than division, but is unwilling to pay good money for IT staff, so is "helping" IT improve their intake.He reckons that a few flattering phone calls to naive newbies will save him diluting his bonus pol with "those lying creeps in IT", which is pretty much how the average head trader sees the department that wants you.Being in IT, isn't just a lack of respect, it means you're going to be in the worst of the front office bonus pools, or quite often not in the FO set of bonuses at all.A good % of the CQF are people in IT moving into more quant work, trust me, no-one is paying money to move the other way.Of course there is a chance that they're telling the truth, but I wouldn't bet my career on it. If3) I like the little you say. Would want some meat on the assertion that it "will" be 50/50, again a common lie.If you want a more private chat about this, let me know.

QuoteOriginally posted by: DCFCTzheng may be right about time series being technical anlaysis, but probably not. Some of the most quant work currently being done is in time series..looking for correlations is another possible explanation

Well actually that's not unlike my own career path, so yes it can be done.But it's a pyramid, and most don't get very far up that slippery pole.(OK, slippery pyramid)I'm a pimp, OK? I've hung around financial markets for decades.You will note from other posts, that I rarely say "Job X is much better than Job Y", partly because I'm working on a small subset of the available data.I (try to) put a balanced view, but (2) sucks compared to the others, this to me is entirely clear.Being a pimp I recognise the seling that happens in getting people to accept a job.When I see the words "java " and "swing", I find it hard to see this job being very quant."the group" does things. And ?If you're lucky you will get to write the GUI front end for the clever people's stuff.Without that it is useless, so it's "important" work.I see they've told you that the IT job is important...They're using the "wind beneath our wings" line.Yes, of course without market data, it all stops badly.But if they guy who installs Excel doesn't do his job, then they are screwed.Same applies to the person who carries in a replacement monitor when the old one dies.No monitor = no work. Really important job, but important does not equal valuable.Maybe there's something you haven't shared with us, but I wouldn't even seriously consider (2)

Totally agree with DCFC. Even a cleaner's work is very important to the bank, and it is true everybody's job is supporting others, so what.

QuoteOriginally posted by: DCFC2) Run away, don't walk. Of course the group loves you, I suspect that because they rarely find smart people willing to take a crap job in IT. "sitting near the traders" is one of the standard lies to suck you into a pothole. The head trader will have been bitching about how his IT people are outwitted by any maths more sophisticated than division, but is unwilling to pay good money for IT staff, so is "helping" IT improve their intake. He reckons that a few flattering phone calls to naive newbies will save him diluting his bonus pol with "those lying creeps in IT", which is pretty much how the average head trader sees the department that wants you.Know yourself. What makes you think you even want to "sit close to traders" or be in the front-office bonus pool? Don't be a naive newbie and take DCFC's word this is the universal scale of values. Josh Levine, Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates all found happiness in IT. DCFC probably lives in London, which is a big trading city. Someone in the western US would wonder what the heck is trading, and why wouldn't a young man want to take a shot? I say get into real estate.

Farmer has a valid view, though I would also say that Gates, Bloomberg et al got big in a very different world.Trying to model an IT career on them, is like trying to be a quant like Emanuel Derman.Technically, I live in Essex, but operate mostly in London, so yes, my view of the west coast game is 2nd rate.But some things are close to invariant with respect to location.Very few banks treat IT types with respect unless they are relatively senior and often not even then.Obviously many around here will feel they don't get respect either, but in my observation IT gets it worse. Actually IT gets it worse than pretty muchany other part of the business, so much so that at the majority of banks they aren't even regarded as part of the business at all.This leads to catastrophic errors such as at Dresdner, ABN Amro and JP Morgan where outsourcing IT not only fucked over the IT people, but hurt the bottom line terribly.When talking to people who have outsourced their IT to jerks like EDS, they talk in the same terms as in the "Aliens" movies.As in "we think we've firewalled them off from the critical stuff, but we keep hearing scary noises in the air ducts..."A couple of my oldest chums are serious hackers, enough that the government changed the law to get them, and given a choice between giving them the passwords to my systems and employing EDS, the bid for EDS would still get rejected.