Hi guys,I am in a similar dilemma. I have to decied on two quant positions: one is quantitative support for mortgage products, the other is algrothimic trading. I want to ask which sector is mor promising in 5 years? Thanks

QuoteOriginally posted by: HinstingsQuoteOriginally posted by: ymikhaleStrategist is not usually a quant position.In Goldman Sachs, the official name for "Quant" is "Strategist". This is what my several friends in GS told me.Congratulations Hinstings! Incidentally, what is your background? As far as the FX stretegist is concerned, I have a friend with GICS or somethng like that division. She is a strategist and has a Phd in Engineering. I also think it is quite quantitative and might involve time series analysis -- that is if you consider that as quite challenging. I doubt you will do much of stochastic calculus kind of work though, which you might get to do in a Mortgage division with UBS.

QuoteOriginally posted by: vbprogrammer Congratulations Hinstings! Incidentally, what is your background? As far as the FX stretegist is concerned, I have a friend with GICS or somethng like that division. She is a strategist and has a Phd in Engineering. I also think it is quite quantitative and might involve time series analysis -- that is if you consider that as quite challenging. I doubt you will do much of stochastic calculus kind of work though, which you might get to do in a Mortgage division with UBS.Thanks. My background is: Ph.D. in Computer Science from a top-tier school, no prior working experience in financial industry.

QuoteOriginally posted by: StephenLiQuoteOriginally posted by: HinstingsGot several offers. There are two among them that makes me feel hard to decide.One is for the mortgage quantitative (prepayment model) developer position of UBS Investment Bank. The other is for the foreign exchange desk strategist position of Goldman Sachs. I don't care too much about issues such as whether one's base salary is 10K higher than the other or not. What matters is the future career development. For the position, I more like MBS market sector because it is more complicated and interesting than FX market sector in my opinion. But Goldman Sachs is more prestigious than UBS on the other hand.What is your suggestion? To choose a more interesting position? Or to choose a more prestigious company? Thanks!If I were you, I would definitely take the GS offer - try to plot a picture of yourself in 5 years, 10 years time.If you had a developer offer from GS and a quant offer from UBS, that is still worth considering. But now the other way around..1+ years later, when I came back to this post, I so regretted that I didn't take your suggestion. Anyway, one year ago, I knew nothing about the various positions on the Street and took my naive imagination as true. Now looking back, I was damn wrong. A rule of thumb would be -- the closer to the money, the better; the closer to the trading desk, the better. Hopefully, this lesson comes not too late.

QuoteOriginally posted by: HinstingsQuoteOriginally posted by: vbprogrammer Congratulations Hinstings! Incidentally, what is your background? As far as the FX stretegist is concerned, I have a friend with GICS or somethng like that division. She is a strategist and has a Phd in Engineering. I also think it is quite quantitative and might involve time series analysis -- that is if you consider that as quite challenging. I doubt you will do much of stochastic calculus kind of work though, which you might get to do in a Mortgage division with UBS.Thanks. My background is: Ph.D. in Computer Science from a top-tier school, no prior working experience in financial industry.What!!!! How did you manage to find a job? Your skills should be horrible.and yea, DCFC hates you.

I don't just hate you, I want you to die.Painfully.And slowly...Reading Algorithms + Data Strucutres = Programs, the worst book on programming ever written. Yes, even worse than Justin London's "book".

QuoteOriginally posted by: veeruthakurWhat!!!! How did you manage to find a job? Your skills should be horrible.and yea, DCFC hates you.said by VT, himself a PhD comp. sc. ... are you dead yet? or at least unemployed? get out of london real quick before dcfc does one or the other to you... Quote I don't just hate you, I want you to die.Painfully.And slowly...Reading Algorithms + Data Strucutres = Programs, the worst book on programming ever written. Yes, even worse than Justin London's "book". why read that? is DCFC 2.0 being taught that at school? and why the sudden obsession with c.s. phds? what happened to this:QuoteMy prejudice is actually a sympathy for technical types who I feel often get a raw deal from math-quants who see them as code monkeys.who is justin london?

QuoteOriginally posted by: HinstingsQuoteOriginally posted by: StephenLiQuoteOriginally posted by: HinstingsGot several offers. There are two among them that makes me feel hard to decide.One is for the mortgage quantitative (prepayment model) developer position of UBS Investment Bank. The other is for the foreign exchange desk strategist position of Goldman Sachs. I don't care too much about issues such as whether one's base salary is 10K higher than the other or not. What matters is the future career development. For the position, I more like MBS market sector because it is more complicated and interesting than FX market sector in my opinion. But Goldman Sachs is more prestigious than UBS on the other hand.What is your suggestion? To choose a more interesting position? Or to choose a more prestigious company? Thanks!If I were you, I would definitely take the GS offer - try to plot a picture of yourself in 5 years, 10 years time.If you had a developer offer from GS and a quant offer from UBS, that is still worth considering. But now the other way around..1+ years later, when I came back to this post, I so regretted that I didn't take your suggestion. Anyway, one year ago, I knew nothing about the various positions on the Street and took my naive imagination as true. Now looking back, I was damn wrong. A rule of thumb would be -- the closer to the money, the better; the closer to the trading desk, the better. Hopefully, this lesson comes not too late.Sorry to hear that, looks like MBS/ABS stuff is not going very well.

QuoteOriginally posted by: veeruthakurQuoteOriginally posted by: HinstingsQuoteOriginally posted by: vbprogrammer Congratulations Hinstings! Incidentally, what is your background? As far as the FX stretegist is concerned, I have a friend with GICS or somethng like that division. She is a strategist and has a Phd in Engineering. I also think it is quite quantitative and might involve time series analysis -- that is if you consider that as quite challenging. I doubt you will do much of stochastic calculus kind of work though, which you might get to do in a Mortgage division with UBS.Thanks. My background is: Ph.D. in Computer Science from a top-tier school, no prior working experience in financial industry.What!!!! How did you manage to find a job? Your skills should be horrible.and yea, DCFC hates you.DCFC mentioned that some hiring managers asked him not to send CVs from CS PhD students. Was wondering whether DCFC can add the list to P&D Guide V.3? Just do it for the good of the community so that we don't need to waste the time to apply for such roles

QuoteOriginally posted by: DCFCI don't just hate you, I want you to die.Painfully.And slowly...Can you give me any context of this comment? I totally got lost. Why do you hate CS PhD so much?

QuoteOriginally posted by: veeruthakurQuoteOriginally posted by: HinstingsQuoteOriginally posted by: vbprogrammer Congratulations Hinstings! Incidentally, what is your background? As far as the FX stretegist is concerned, I have a friend with GICS or somethng like that division. She is a strategist and has a Phd in Engineering. I also think it is quite quantitative and might involve time series analysis -- that is if you consider that as quite challenging. I doubt you will do much of stochastic calculus kind of work though, which you might get to do in a Mortgage division with UBS.Thanks. My background is: Ph.D. in Computer Science from a top-tier school, no prior working experience in financial industry.What!!!! How did you manage to find a job? Your skills should be horrible.and yea, DCFC hates you.Maybe NYC is different from London? A lot of my fellow CS Ph.D. students got very good positions in investment banks and hedge funds on the Street, either as front desk quant, trading strategiest, or quant developer, market risk modeler. And a fair comparison of the C++ programming skills, i.e., student vs student, 2 year industrial experience vs 2 year industrial experience, is that CS Ph.Ds have much stronger C++ programming skills than non-CS Ph.Ds in general. So I got totally confused here.

QuoteOriginally posted by: Hinstings1+ years later, when I came back to this post, I so regretted that I didn't take your suggestion. Anyway, one year ago, I knew nothing about the various positions on the Street and took my naive imagination as true. Now looking back, I was damn wrong. A rule of thumb would be -- the closer to the money, the better; the closer to the trading desk, the better. Hopefully, this lesson comes not too late.Hinstings, would you mind elaborating on what your naive imaginations were and how the reality was different for you? It would help a newbie like me in better aligning my expectations and imaginations with reality. This is one of those gem of a thread where the OP actually comes back to update on his situation a significant time later. Thanks for doing that.

Reading Algorithms + Data Strucutres = Programs, the worst book on programming ever written. Yes, even worse than Justin London's "book". why read that? is DCFC 2.0 being taught that at school? No.DCFC 1.0 got taught it. Terrible book If you look at my Blog, I don't hate Computer Science PhDs. But I despair of people who have formal qualification in CompSci that fail to learn C++ but still want quant jobs.is that CS Ph.Ds have much stronger C++ programming skills than non-CS Ph.Ds in general. So I got totally confused hereIt's that the CS PhDs aren't significantly stronger in C++ on average, and too many are worse.As CS PhD should normally be expected to outclass a physics Phd at C++ (bad pun).DCFC mentioned that some hiring managers asked him not to send CVs from CS PhD students. Was wondering whether DCFC can add the list to P&D Guide V.3? Just do it for the good of the community so that we don't need to waste the time to apply for such rolesAh, this is where I fear I may start to confuse people.I am quite happy to lobby on behalf of someone who I am sure can do the job, even in spite of prejudice. But I need to be sure if I'm going to have that fight.QF should have far more CS PhDs and I would like to help bring that about. Think of it as tough love.OK, think of it as needlessly vicious love, if you like.

QuoteOriginally posted by: quantifyMeQuoteOriginally posted by: Hinstings1+ years later, when I came back to this post, I so regretted that I didn't take your suggestion. Anyway, one year ago, I knew nothing about the various positions on the Street and took my naive imagination as true. Now looking back, I was damn wrong. A rule of thumb would be -- the closer to the money, the better; the closer to the trading desk, the better. Hopefully, this lesson comes not too late.Hinstings, would you mind elaborating on what your naive imaginations were and how the reality was different for you? It would help a newbie like me in better aligning my expectations and imaginations with reality. This is one of those gem of a thread where the OP actually comes back to update on his situation a significant time later. Thanks for doing that.As I said, a rule of thumb would be -- the closer to the money, the better; the closer to the trading desk, the better. Of course, in reality to operate on this rule, you may have to take considerations of other factors, such as investment bank vs hedge fund. It is always a good idea to ask more people on the Street for advice.