Any one has get MCSD? Is it good to have for our career?

No.I have several reasons for this. 1: It contains a vast array of marketing led junk rather than hardcore stuff required for a developer.2: You can't measure the quality of a programmer by whether he knows the member functions of some MFC class. Programming is doing things, not knowing trivia.3: MFC is toxic waste, and MCSD doesn't cover grown up libraries like STL, Boost et al.4: MSCD pushes a form of design that was state of the art in 1994.5: MCSD contains no quant stuff at all.6: No one I've ever worked with as a developer and respected has an MCSD. Several really quite crap ones did.7: Several areas that are really useful to quant developers inside the MS architecture are barely covered or not mentioned at all.8: Even if it was a valid measure of the quality of a developer, it helps form one of the key potholes for a quant with development skills. It makes you look like an IT department type.The MCSD is for people gluing together MS products in an IT department.Hands up those who want to build marketing databases ?

MS moved MCAD + MCSD from C++ to being soledly VB.Net or C#.Net based 15 months ago (you get to choose which language you do it in - make it C#)MFC being a possible module in MCAD / MCSD was dropped by MS almost 5 years agohttp://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcpexams/sta ... ed.aspThen again, I know that Merrill in the summer this year were recruiting for exotic derivative quant developers with MFC skills !If you want to get good at C++ (for which STL and Boost are pretty much essential), don't even think of doing an MCSDIf you do decide to do the MCAD / MCSD, then consider doing it based on the .Net 2.0 platform instead of v1.1 - MS is saying publicly that it will move from beta to final release / RTM on 7th November this yearDCFC is absolutely right in saying that MCSD contains zero quant stuff - the purpose of doing an MCSD is to migrate one's skills from older technologies into .Net - to make use of it you will need coding experience beforehand.

MichaelA is of course right, I was thinking of people who have the MCSD, rather than people who might be taking it.Yes, there exist MFC developers, some of them are quants. Thus we get into my "pothole" model of choosing jobs.MFC doesn't stop you being a quant, it's role to to make certain tasks easier. But ask yourself about the nature of a job that requires MFC for what they claim is a quant role.There is a small possibility that the manager genuinlely believes MFC is good, that's scary, do you want to work for a fool ?The more probable situation is that your job will be to babysit an old big and important application. If I was the sort of pimp who deceived candidates I'd spin this as "development of a major system critical to our business".Which would be true. but the same could be said about the toilets. Being old, you won't do much new good stuff, there is little opportunity to impress people who might lift you out or give you a good bonus, and since it will be hard to fool other people to join your team, they won't let you transfer to a better job internally. Also when you come to leave, MFC will not be an asset on your CV, and you'll look old fashioned.The other case is where they are porting from an MFC based system to a modern one. That's usually good, but be aware that they may be "realistic" about the conversion, and after you join, you may find the work is mostly bug fixing with the port put off until "the time is right".MichaelA also right about version, and MS is still offering free betas of VS 200 which seems quite good.I'm not 100% with him on C#. Not saying he's wrong, and C# is definitely growing, but the quant action is still overwhelmingly C++.

I don't work for Microsoft, and this isn't meant as a plug, but I thought people might be interested to know that MS have re-launched their certification programsAnyone care to comment ? (constructively if possible !)http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/newgen/

Grazing through MichaelA's likn I find little of relevance to quant finance, certainly the trend seems to continue down.

MCAD/MCSD type qualifications tend to be taken by the unemployed of this market to show they have been "keeping upto date".Very little worth really.

MCAD/MCSD type qualifications tend to be taken by the unemployed of this market to show they have been "keeping upto date".A reasonable interpretation, also by people wanting to get in.There are a few other reasons. At various points in time MS has sweetened the deal heavily, with packages of free/cheap stuff. Also to be a "Microsoft Partner", each level requires a certain number of MS qualified staff.Occasionally the dimmer end of client company take this to mean the company is qualified to take on outsourcing. The effects are better imagined than experienced.Also, we have seen non-MS courses almost disappear. Used to be the case that lots of people taught what they felt you ought to know. Now there is an official curriculum, many employers opt for the one that has a certificate. Employers really like some test since it shows you actually turned up and paid attention. MS makes it very hard to stray from their line, including making you use their course materials.Thus, there are a lot more MS qualified people than admit to it on their CV.No reason a training company has to use the MS stuff, and the CQF course and Daniel Duffy's people don't force it on you.Obviously math/finance is different from bog standard "IT department" C++, but even then there is a need for different technical content. Quant programmers need a menu to include DLLs, C++ threads, Sockets, Interfacing with Excel, and some pedantry on the nature of floating point numbers. The MS stuff barely touches on making code fast.I'm just finishing the translation of a slab of VBA to C++, there's no course on this, perhpas there should be a 1 day seminar ?

Quote The MS stuff barely touches on making code fast. I mis-read this oroginally. The MS stuff touches on making (writing) the code fast, as in knocking up things in an hour...