Hi All, I have a question for the community...I sometimes see various job options described as "Dead End", and I was wondering if those with experience could shed some more light on...1) What types of jobs quant-type people are offered that are considered dead-end, and1) What is meant by dead-end? How badly, and in what ways, will your career prospects be affected?I'm shooting for my first quant job right now, and one of my current options is not with a hedge fund or bank, but a company that builds and sells stock selection models... any opinions on that from a long-term career viability perspective would be great.Thanks much for your $0.02 and/or £0.01.

QuoteOriginally posted by: nickelplate1) What types of jobs quant-type people are offered that are considered dead-end, andJobs that are basically installing and troubleshooting installation packages. The two dead ends are IT and database administration. It's not that these aren't important and challenging jobs, they are. It's just that they are what most people on this board are looking for.Quote1) What is meant by dead-end? How badly, and in what ways, will your career prospects be affected?The problem is that in order to get a better job you need the right experience. If you get a job in database administration, you are going to be spending 12 hours a day learning the various weird incantations to make Oracle work. This means that you don't have time to improve your C++ or mathematical skills, and so you aren't able to move out of that job. If you like database administration, no problem. If you don't, big problem.QuoteI'm shooting for my first quant job right now, and one of my current options is not with a hedge fund or bank, but a company that builds and sells stock selection models... any opinions on that from a long-term career viability perspective would be great.It depends on what the job has you do, and whether this matches what you want to do ten years from now.

Thanks much, that's really useful info!

Here is my £0.01 or $1.50The underlying issue is that the easiest job for you to get next is some variation on what you do now."dead end" is where you are doing stuff where you learn very little or where the things you learn only apply to the firm you are currently working for.This is actually worse than "dead end", since one day the job you currently do will go, and you won't have portable skills to find a new one.Being one of the oldest people around here, I will tell you that this happens more than you might think, seen it, not nice.There is a big correlation between IT work and being non-portable. Common scenarios include being an expert on the issues of a package developed internally.A surprisingly frequent pot hole is sucking data into the really important system, Perl crops up in this context.But C and C++ are portable in the extreme, our new Film FX operation is very keen.Types of financial product also go wobbly, even ones that are sexy now."Packages" aren't purely bad. Firms will often pay good money to those who have mastered an important system, the problem is when they go out of fashion.There is some optimisation to be done here.Portable skills involve various types of maths and programming, but also the "deeper" bit of business knowledge, like "why do people really buy this sort of credit insurance", or "what trading processes work in non-liquid markets".

This is an interesting topic. And is of concern to me as well at this stage of my career (started making plans for my retirement) .If I understand the explanation being offered here, all jobs have an element of 'dead-end' built in them. For example, any financial product or system or even programming language may go out of fashion. Therefore, in order to build a successful career, I guess it is more important to do things that you like to do instead of running after an in-fashion job. The probability of a currently in-fashion job becoming a 'dead-end' job in 5 years may be 50% (The probability experts here can confirm this). Or is it possible to keep jumping onto the next band-wagon of 'in-fashion' jobs throughout one's career? Sounds like a surfer riding one wave after the other. For example, even a successful hollywood can hit a wall based on the kind of movies that get made and what he/she can offer to the producers.I think it is also possible that a job like database administration may be considered a 'dead-end' job, but someone who likes it may end up innovating a new database admin process or system because of the new demands from client industry(s) even though the database technologies have reminaed the same.So maybe what one learns from a job depends on the person and less to do with the kind of job.

QuoteOriginally posted by: DCFCour new Film FX operationWhat is Film FX? "Film" is a kind of retro word, I hope you are marketing towards an older demographic.Anyway, I think too much blame is put on the job, and not on the person doing it. Some people are well suited to certain jobs but will never do much more. Like if a guy does pizza delivery, his prospects for advancement are less than if he worked the front desk at a hotel. But that is why he is a delivery driver.

QuoteOriginally posted by: rishikuIf I understand the explanation being offered here, all jobs have an element of 'dead-end' built in them. For example, any financial product or system or even programming language may go out of fashion. But general skills tend not to go out of fashion. In particular, if you are really, really good in one OOP, then it won't be that difficult for you to be moderately good in another, which means that it isn't that bad to make the transitionQuoteThe probability of a currently in-fashion job becoming a 'dead-end' job in 5 years may be 50% (The probability experts here can confirm this).The probability that your current job will be obsolete in 5 years is about 90%. If you are constantly learning new stuff, and if the company you are working at encourages you to learn new stuff, then in five years, you'll be doing whatever that new job is. This is even the case with programming languages. C++, 5 years from now, will be different is some major ways from C++ today. QuoteI think it is also possible that a job like database administration may be considered a 'dead-end' job, but someone who likes it may end up innovating a new database admin process or system because of the new demands from client industry(s) even though the database technologies have reminaed the same.Unfortunately no, and that is why database administration tends to be somewhat of a "dead end." The new database admin processes and systems are developed by people other than the database administrators. You have vendors come up with new database systems and then push them down, and the admins take whatever the vendors give them. Also "new" and "innovative" tend to be dirty words to database people (a good thing). Migrating a production database to a new platform easily can take five to ten years, and even upgrading a database to a new version can take three to six months.

What is Film FX? "Film" is a kind of retro word, I hope you are marketing towards an older demographic.We are of course entirely non ageist...The company in question are currently working on digital effects for the next Harry Potter film, having the past done FX James Bond Casino Royale, Stardust, Rome, and yet more bloody Harry Potter.As it turns out the maths and programming used in extreme high end computer graphics shares a lot in common with quant work.

QuoteOriginally posted by: DCFCour new Film FX operationYou and Paul own Film FX?

QuoteAs it turns out the maths and programming used in extreme high end computer graphics shares a lot in common with quant work. I find that very hard to draw correspondence between the two domains. CAD is hidden-surface removal, Phong shading etc. etc. and the ideal area for OO, but I do not think you need 3d coordinate geometry in finance...

High en computer graphics is not CAD.

QuoteOriginally posted by: madmaxHigh en computer graphics is not CAD.Yes it is. here And it can be.Can you explain why you think it is not? I agree that 2d AutoCAD drawings are not high-end...Read this design

When I think CAD I usually think about non-moving things. When I think computer graphics I usually imagine animations.Now, we may not agree on the names/definitions. But if we agree about computer graphics having animation then that can involve AI for example which bring in Monte Carlo, MCMC type of algos, Likelihood estimation, dynamic programming....

QuoteOriginally posted by: madmaxWhen I think CAD I usually think about non-moving things. When I think computer graphics I usually imagine animations.In the beginning CAD was so. One of the first moving CAD drawings used on UK television in 1977 was made using the Medusa CAD system (IMO one of the best CAD systems ever) from Cambridge (UK) was a wire-frame model of a car moving on a highway. Very primitive by today's standards but at the time it was high-tech. These days CAD encompasses the full product lifecycle, including 2d/3d simulation and animation. QuoteBut if we agree about computer graphics having animation then that can involve AIAI == Artificial Intelligence? does it work? Most algorithms in CAD tend to be FEM, mechanics-based and so on. There are also specialised packages for acoustics that use the 3d models.

Max,If we could model output from finance applications using 3d animation techniques would be useful to test different models? (it is easier to visualise than a spreadsheet).