Hi, could use some advice, have a couple of good job offers, none of my buddies have a clue about this kind of stuff. Have heard so much BS from both recruitment agents that it's hard to know what to believe.I want to be a quantitative developer. Not a full-on quant. Nor a pure IT developer. But a quantitative developer, so implementing pricing stuff for the FO etc. My background up to now is Math at top school, QuantFin MSc, 3yrs experience in Exotics Front & Middle Office, have good VBA, and some C++.Job A is at a newly vast, American IB, salary is 1.08*$XDeveloper in IT for Rates Exotics (eventually..)Offers training in C#, which I don't yet have.But involves a stint supporting Repos Desk for 6-9 months, (warning bells!!) and developing some analytical/pricing tools for sales & marketing Wasn't interviewed by anyone from FO or asked any taxing derivs/exotics kind of questions.Job B is at a ('the'?) successful British IB, salary is $XQuantitative Desk Developer for an Exotics Trading Desk, sat on the desk.I was interviewed in detail by the head trader, asked plenty of technical derivatives questions.Purely VBA based.So: Advantage for A is the C# training and higher salary, plus supposedly better organisation for later career mobility. Disadvantage is some of time initially spent doing quantitative stuff (IT support for a dull area.)Advantage for B is, more quantitative, interesting products, working with trading. Disadvantage is a bit too VBA focussed, and rumour has it the organisation is a bit of a 'revolving door', people coming and then going when they find career progress blocked..I don't really know what the difference between bonuses is between these two organisations, [whose names you can probably deduce], do any of you know?Would really appreciate some views from you guys. Thanks for reading.

Take the Barclay's job. I assume that's the 'British bank' you're speaking of. I assume the other in J.P. Morgan. The fact that you never spoke to anyone in the front office should be your deciding factor. You're only hoping that you'll get to move to the FO. Why would you risk it, when you can sit on the desk NOW at BarCap?I think it's a no-brainer. You can always learn C# on your own, and you definitely want to be on the desk. People on the desk make SO MUCH more money than people off the desk. Why? Because you're on the desk PnL. And the desk head actually knows your name and face, and can attach a value in his mind to the work that you do.You know why it's VBA-based? Because traders actually use Excel, and the products you'll be developing will almost surely be used by a trader. Also, by sitting on the trading desk, you'll be exposed to the trading floor, and (maybe) have a shot at moving to an exotic trading position in the future.

Barclays Desk Developer versus BofA IT Developer? Go for the former.

Now that you have more than 1 offer, you should tell them that you have another offer interesting offer. Then try to get more detail on the jobs so that you see which one you really like. It is your turn to do the quizzing. Once you have decided which role you prefer, try to get them to raise their offers. At worst they say no, and you can still take the offer.VBA is not the only language that talks to Excel. C# is very good at that.

Have heard so much BS from both recruitment agents that it's hard to know what to believe.Bullshit from HHs ? How can this be ?So I'll add my input....I'm going to alternately flatter and offend you, so if you're an evangelical stop reading now.You seem smart enough to learn C# all by yourself, but too dumb to have realised earlier that you ought to have worked harder on C++C# courses (if you required them) would cost you $5K to get you up to speed (roughly), my call is to ignore them. Another way to price the C# is to compare the cost of a programming course with an MFE or CQF, you can spend 10 * as much on learning finance.I'm glad bells are ringing about the "temporary" support job, and you might choose to wonder why we don't act on behalf of that particular bank, we won't answer, but you should at least ask. The S&M makes it worse, indeed it's hard to see how it could easily go down from that, you don't say if they asked about your SQL, which would be a very very negative signal in this context.Your analysis based upon who interviewed you is right at the money. If you're interviewed by IT, you're an IT person, there are no variables in that expression.I don't give a toss about an 8% difference in base pay, nor should you, indeed given what you say I'd not care at several times that difference. The key terms are net present value and bonus. As a repo support guy, your bonus can be expected to be low. I don't know about the S&M component, and that should tell you something, when a quant headhunter says he can't guess what your bonus might be, you aren't in quant finance any more Toto.Forget the internal transition shit, it's an industry standard lie, and I fail to see why being a little more senior in the IT department is in any way attractive. Do you have ambitions to be a team leader of repo support techies ?Yes, Barcap has had churn issues, but this is banking and the surest hedge is the skills you carry out in your head when the day comes, and come it will no matter who you work for. I do not believe Barcap to be worse in terms of developing your career, nor do I see them as better, all banks are crap at this, and you have to assume you need to leave to progress, and even if you move up within either firm that will be due to your actions in spite of the structure, not because of it.You're new here, so you might not have read me saying that if banks had any real interest in developing people's careers, I'd have to quit pimping and get a real job.C# is the 4th most common quant programming environment behind C++, VBA, Matlab/R, so is not a bad thing to have but as I say elsewhere my 8 year old can do that, it won't impress many people.Being a VBA jockey is an issue, but what they ask you to code, and what you write do not invariably have to be the same thing. No reason you can't make them happy by speeding up the analytics in C++ XLLs. There's one last issue, that of personal integrity....When you take a job, all the shit you've been fed by the headhunter is in your past, the job is the future.But at your stage of career you are pathetically dependant upon your boss, his success and failure directly affects you and his goodwill and integrity are critical.Although the HH may be lying to you, these lies seem more like the reflection of what the fragrant lady has been told, they simply have chosen not to question the statement of the manager who wants to hire you. I of course can't know the truth from where I'm sitting, but they are not showing good faith here.Of course Barcap might be lying as well, but frankly head traders have more profitable uses of their time than bullshitting newbie quant developers.So, although I've used more words to say it, brotherbear1220, ArthurDent and madmax are right, the Barcap job wins easily.

Hi guys, Thanks a lot for all your responses, Dominic especially [you didn't offend me enough, I was disappointed ]. To be honest, the act of writing the question down in the textbox and reading through it gave me my answer. But since I'd written it all out anyway I decided to hit 'Post' anyway, and good to see more experienced people agree with me.

The last person I knew doing that job at that firm on that desk, was an IT headcount and paid accordingly. Check whether you're F/O or IT headcount before making the leap.

Barcap is an easy win, like DC says there's no reason why you can't pimp the code up in C++, in fact that's the very definition of value-add, going the extra mile. You will learn so much more about markets and what is and is not important in quant finance when sat next to traders. ps. do you have a PhD?

Hi barny, nope, no PHd, just MSc. Yeah you're right, further down the line it would be great to 'pimp the code up in C++' as you say.Endian675 - yeah costcentre was the one of the first things I checked, job B does appear to be under technology headcount too, so presumably pays accordingly. But it's still a good move upwards compared to where I am now, and is sat with trading rather than IT, so in terms of experience should be useful and interesting. So I'll 'make the leap' regardless.And whoever asked: Job B didn't ask me SQL questions but Job A did.

why does everyone think the job is at barcap?

QuoteOriginally posted by: WannaArbwhy does everyone think the job is at barcap?QuoteOriginally posted by: Wilberforcesuccessful British IB

It was me who asked about SQL, this is a conditional predictor of a bad quant job.In a role that is clearly quant oriented an employer interest in SQL is of no significance, since much data is in this form.But.... SQL is a housekeeping IT skill, and is used in everything from email, through to keeping lists of customers. The sales and marketing point W mentioned at the start combines hostility here. Keeping track of customers is critically important, what products they've bought, their preferences, all sorts of shit, and given a choice between losing their quant analytic systems, and the customer DB, many desk will hold the customer DB to the death.The worst case is that S&M like you, and keep you there with nice pay rises and offers of future work. Then a few years from now, the area you support has a down, and you find that the market for tactical SQL development is really shit, and you've forgotten your quant skills.So i'd counsel any newbie to learn basic SQL, but watch carefully for any employer who likes it too much.I am guilty of assuming job B is at Barcap. It might be HSBC, which aside from the name is effectively British, but it's IB operation in the US is considerably smaller, it is not Lloyds who most Americans have never heard of and is wobbling anyway, RBS is large but so sick that even in the worst entry level job market in a generation it can't attract the newbies it wants, and no before you ask we don't act for them, there may be a correlation there