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Hi Guys,I've recently finished a second internship at CSFB, working within client valuations (Ops). Towards the end, I went for a few meetings, one of which was with an MD, who was head of Global Derivatives IT. After our meeting, he was keen to get me involved after I finish Part III Mathematics next year - and wants me to come in again sometime this week for an interview.The role he described to me, involved designing and implementing spreadsheets for some of the more exotic products for use on the trading floor. The role involves direct contact with Traders, Quants, IT and Risk Analysts.My question is: does anyone know or have any experience with roles such as this? From my stand point, it seems ideal. I enjoy project based work, and it would seem that I could branch off into other areas (specifically the quant area, or possibly trading). My only worry is that my programming skills wont be upto scratch - I have a fairly basic knowledge of VB, C and C++, but nothing I'd consider great.Any info would be much appreciated!

QuoteOriginally posted by: Anth0nyHi Guys,I've recently finished a second internship at CSFB, working within client valuations (Ops). Towards the end, I went for a few meetings, one of which was with an MD, who was head of Global Derivatives IT. After our meeting, he was keen to get me involved after I finish Part III Mathematics next year - and wants me to come in again sometime this week for an interview.The role he described to me, involved designing and implementing spreadsheets for some of the more exotic products for use on the trading floor. The role involves direct contact with Traders, Quants, IT and Risk Analysts.My question is: does anyone know or have any experience with roles such as this? From my stand point, it seems ideal. I enjoy project based work, and it would seem that I could branch off into other areas (specifically the quant area, or possibly trading). My only worry is that my programming skills wont be upto scratch - I have a fairly basic knowledge of VB, C and C++, but nothing I'd consider great.Any info would be much appreciated!Be careful with a role like this. If you are employed by IT and you have ambtions of trading or being a quant then this is not the correct route to go.The role you describe sounds like taking the quants c++ work and adding an excel front end. Something IT is notoriously bad at and quants usually can't be bothered with. I have done a role like this and is a bit of a dead end career wise.FV

I've more experience of this sort of thing that can possibly be of any use to anyone, including me It could be good. It might not.From the little I know of your academic background, it seems to me that you could master Excel and VBA without any hassle. Though it is a long process.CSFB have just completed a big job of converting many Excel sheets to a C++ framework. Thus the first question you need to ask is where you are relative to this process.Such is the size of CSFB that this may be near, or so far away that he's only dimly aware of it.You will want to make sure that you will be trained. You can teach yourself, but it takes longer and have holes. Best is of course a mix.You say your programming skills aren't great, and I have to tell you that surprisingly few maths/physics peope leave college with detectable programming skills, much less good ones. I shall define "rare" here as the last person we found who showed adequate skills in C++, was interviewed at a large bank i3 days later, and we were negotiating money for him at lunch the same day as his interview. That's not quite standard.Some new grads stuggle with pathetically simple questions.At the risk of sounding too much like the pimp I am, you should view the job in terms of how it will help you get the sort of job you want in 2-3 years time. It may be at CSFB, it may not.C++ is a portable skill, and one can expect a demand for it in that timescale.It may seem you can branch off into other things, but certain things in what you say draw that into question.They like you. all by itself you can value that as having a net present value of several hundred K over your working life. (Do the sums).IT people at MD level rarely, if ever have it within their gift to get you into trading. They might introduce you to traders, you may work with them, but you are not one of them.So much so, that you can use it as an audit question. An IT type who says he can is probably lying about something else that you as a newbie can't spot.Nothing of course is quite 100% proof though.One of the downsides of not having a pimp doing this crap for you, is that you are naturally afraid of upsetting someone who may be offering you a really great job.More questions:Will you be part of the IT department ? We've worked some roles where IT was doing the legwork for Excel guys to work for traders. So it does happen.But if you're in IT, you will serve their agenda, not that of the traders. You've excelled at valuations Ops. If they need a good guy for that whose name do you think is high on the list ?Will you be working in Valuation Ops ever again ?They're not bad people, and you've obviously got on well with them. But do you want to spend the next 5 years there ?Banks are drive highly by systems of positive feedback. Doing a job well can have bad consequences.In the interview say you like them (if true) and you like CSFB but make it clear you want a career, not just a decent job on leaving.What training will you get ?If you're sucked directly into IT you may find yourself getting less training than a bog standard graduate. That may mean you earn more in your first year, but does bad things for the net present value.Who will you be reporting to ?The actual person doesn't matter. What you care about is the things he is managing. If that includes bad things, you may be lumbered with them.Where will you be physically sitting ? It's too simplistic to say that physically proximity to the trading floor is good, but if you're sitting in ops, prob of 0.9 it's bad.Excel is not a skill that people respect as much as they should.If you become wise in it's ways, you will never go hungry, but very few of the good jobs ask for it, even if the day to day work is driving the beast far more often than C++/C# whatever.You say you're be workin on the more exotic stuff, and that's good.How you going to understand it then ?With all due respect, exotic stuff is hard, and if there is no plan in place for your education to continue, or a formal programme of some kind then you're going to always be an nurse, never a surgeon.Who is like that ?If you're lucky, there's someone who has followed the path they suggest. Ask about them.If they don't exist, it can be a bad sign. To be sure, some people join banks as straight programmers and end up master quants, but it's not the way to bet and getting rarer.It's not a very bad sign, of course, but you should see if the moves you want are realistic. Often the only way to move silos is not within a bank, but hopping out to another, hence my points about portable skills.What's the money like ?Your first salary is a pathetically small % of your life earnings. Therefore it is rational to accept pathetically small amounts if the area under the curve is notched up a little bit.However, salary is also a signal, albeit one masked by considerable noise.The nearer this job is to what I guess you want, the more they will pay you. Do not take the long term view here, unless you really really trust that particular MD to deliver.Who else is in on this decision?If it's a pure IT job, then your MD can pretty much hire you personally, and the others will be part of the firm's standard bureaucracy.But you don't want a pure IT job do you ?Thus you need to know that people in the trading/quant area are in on this.It would be odd if this job were as you want, and as you seem to have been told if some quant/trader managers didn't insist that they meet youBut of course lots of odd things happen at banks, several have hired me