Hi, everyone! This is really a nice forum! I'm a PhD and I recently got 2 internship offers. One is quant in Fixed income, one is in structured finance. I's hard for me to make a decision! I read the topics on structured finance in this forum and they're really helpful. I also heard that if you do structured finance, you can get exposure to different products and there's a lot of interaction with both research group and sales&trading group. But I'd like to know more:1. Is structured finance a hot/new area so there're lots of job opportunities in the future?2. Which investment bank are good in structured finance?3. As for compensation and promotion opportunities, is quant better or structured finance better?4. If your long term goal is to be a trader for exotic products, which experience helps more, quant or structured finance?I really look forward to hearing your opinions on my questions! Thank you!

congrats on the offersmy understanding of what a structured finance desk does is to package structures for clients to exploit tax/accounting/and legal advantages. those can be quite profittable.a structured finance desk is different than a structured derivatives desk (the exotics desk); one is filled with people with ex-corporate lawyers and accountants, and the other is filled with traders and phd's.

Thank you! Your photo is pretty cool!

structured finance can cover a multitude of sins. it might be worth finding out what sort of structured finance it is. Tax structured finance is dying out due to anti avoidance laws.More generally, i'd only advise going for quant if you are really really into maths.

QuoteOriginally posted by: mjstructured finance can cover a multitude of sins. it might be worth finding out what sort of structured finance it is. Tax structured finance is dying out due to anti avoidance laws.More generally, i'd only advise going for quant if you are really really into maths.I've learned modern option pricing theories as well as numberical techniques. In the meanwhile, I've learned about the so-called financial enginnering, whose course content is structurer-oriented, i.e., focus on the structuring of portfolio to meet a particular financial goal and risk manangement. I feel more like to be a structurer instead of a pure Quant and not quite into math. So according to your experience, is it difficult in general for a CS-majored student who has learned those financial courses and has enough sense of finance (I read WSJ and has passion on finance) to find a postion of structurer on the Street?

QuoteOriginally posted by: kellyyeHi, everyone! This is really a nice forum! I'm a PhD and I recently got 2 internship offers. One is quant in Fixed income, one is in structured finance. I's hard for me to make a decision! I read the topics on structured finance in this forum and they're really helpful. I also heard that if you do structured finance, you can get exposure to different products and there's a lot of interaction with both research group and sales&trading group. But I'd like to know more:1. Is structured finance a hot/new area so there're lots of job opportunities in the future?2. Which investment bank are good in structured finance?3. As for compensation and promotion opportunities, is quant better or structured finance better?4. If your long term goal is to be a trader for exotic products, which experience helps more, quant or structured finance?I really look forward to hearing your opinions on my questions! Thank you!I'm rather wondering these things myself. I've been talking to a consulting group about doing some forecasting/stats work for a structured finance group in a bank. I wasn't real aware of this sort of thing before, or its present hotness in the world of recently minted MBA's, but it looks like a golden opportunity to throw some simple math at a SF problem and get fat returns. The mere fact that they were all, "oooo, Forecasting which is not MA(1); neat," rather indicates to me they'd utterly freak out for LP's or NLP's. Doubtless some groups are more sophisticated than others, but it seems to me there is no Black Scholes or even APT for structured finance problems yet. Might be a great place to make a big impact.A couple of the Wilmott regulars have pointed out that the best years of quant work are probably in the past; it's turning into a regular job (albeit one which works closely with traders, and therefore is profitable). Workers in the field now are colonists rather than conquerors. Maybe SF is the next place. Then again, maybe it's just a place for me to make a few bucks in coming months.

QuoteOriginally posted by: akimona structured finance desk is different than a structured derivatives desk (the exotics desk); one is filled with people with ex-corporate lawyers and accountants, and the other is filled with traders and phd's.So which leads to a higher paying career path? the one with lawyers/accountants or the desk with phds?