I've aggregated all of my research about quant finance careers into this thread.
Hi all,
I've been researching quant finance careers for a while. In this thread, I've aggregated many informative links that I've found during my research. These links should answer a lot of your questions about (getting into) quant finance as a career. I've grouped them into categories and added descriptions so that you can jump to whatever you need.
Overview of quant jobs
- How to become a quant: this is an article by eFinancialCareers (UK-based) that I really liked because it gives a wide yet still detailed overview of quant roles.
- Quant funds by Mergers and Inquisitions: this website is usually focussed on "traditional” finance (investment banking, private equity, fundamental hedge funds, etc), but I think this particular article on quant funds gives a good overview.
- QuantStart career articles: a series of articles specifically about quant finance careers by the QuantStart blog. In my opinion, some of their older articles may be out of date, but they're very readable and a good way to quickly get an overview before doing deeper reading.
- WallStreetOasis on quants: article by WallStreetOasis. Same as for the above bullet point: usually they're focused on traditional finance but this is still worth reading.
- Understanding the industry and its many moving parts: a summary and comparison of quant roles on the sell-side (banks) versus buy-side (prop shops, hedge funds); read this with a grain of salt though, because it's written by someone who's not a quant professional.
- Comprehensive Overview on Types of Quants: a great Reddit thread about quant roles; make sure you also read the replies by other users as they can contain valuable information.
- Paths that leads to Quantitative career (in finance or not), and those that are unlikely to lead to it: a summary of quant roles, mostly taken from the book "Quant Interview Questions and Answers" by Mark Joshi.
Threads about quant finance careers by professionals
- Reflections from a senior quant: a Reddit thread by a senior quant about careers in quant finance, in response to wrong information spread by students/users with no quant experience.
- Quant trader AMA: AMA by a quant trader.
- I am a Wall Street quant AMA: AMA by a Wall Street quant (very old, so some information might be out of date).
- A day in the life of a quantitative developer: a great "a day in the life of a quant developer" write up.
- Quant trading megathread #1: a Reddit megathread answering questions about quant trading.
- Quant trading megathread #2: similar megathread by the same person above.
- So you want to be a quant: WallStreetOasis thread about being/becoming a quant.
Books
Note that by "books" I refer to books that are about quant interviews specifically, not about general maths/stats/coding books.
- Quant Interview Questions and Answers by Mark Joshi.
- Frequently Asked Questions in Quantitative Finance by Paul Wilmott.
- Heard on The Street by Timothy Crack.
- A Practical Guide To Quantitative Finance Interviews by Xinfeng Zhou (often called "green book").
- 50 Challenging Problems in Probability with Solutions by Frederick Mosteller (not actually about quant interviews, but has probability brainteasers that are representative of what would come up in interviews).
Informal interview guides
- Quant research interview guide: an interview guide for quant research (not quant trading) roles.
- Tips on recruiting for quant trader roles: see title.
- 80000 hours quant trading guide: a pdf giving an overview of quant trading (not quant research or quant dev). Note that an 80 page version of this pdf used to exist, but it seems to have been taken down and is hard to find.
- Market Makers Trader application and interview guide: discussion about market-making interview questions.
- Quantitative Primer: a guide with quant interview questions and *detailed* answers, helpful for understanding answers step-by-step. also talks about "soft factors": how to behave before/during/after the interview, what to expect from recruiters, etc.
Online study materials
- Max Dama on Automated Trading: a pdf by Max Dama on automated trading. Reads more "personally" and has a wide breadth of information.
- Max Dama’s Brainteasers Study Guide (WIP): a collection of quant interview questions (and some answers) with some tips on studying smarter.
- Study programme for quant researcher interviews: a guide on how to study for quant research interviews, with links to resources.
- Brainstellar: probability questions in a similar vein to the usual quant interview books.
- Zetamac: mental maths practice.
- RankYourBrain: also mental maths practice.
- Tradermath: I think this used to be based on Optiver's "80 questions in 8 minutes" online assessment, but has since become different. Can somebody confirm?
- Figgie: a card game invented by Jane Street that I think trains the skills used in market-making.
YouTube channels
- DimitriBianco: the only channel I could find that talks about quant finance careers. I think they've left quant finance now but used to be on the sell-side.
- atypicalquant: this channel has videos answering and explaining quant Interview questions. I've used it only a couple of times, but I think it would be particularly helpful if you're really stuck on a question and need a step-by-step explanation and implementation on how to solve it.
- statquest: channel teaching statistics. Obviously not just for quant, but has a few fantastic videos on step-by-step examples explaining fundamental concepts. For example, as basic as it is, none of the books I read explained the difference between "probability" and "likelihood" in maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). Then I watched a video on MLE by statquest and it all became very clear.
Twitter/Substack/Quora/Discord
You can browse these for "easy" reading. I've found that they're a good way to learn about the "soft factors" of working in quant finance, beyond only the "hard factors" like degrees, grades and technical skills.
Quant job openings
- Significant employers of quants: a list of companies that hire quants.
- Quant jobs: a GitHub repo containing links to quant jobs.
- openquant.co: a hand-curated website that aggregates quant jobs, originally posted here.
Closing remarks
I've searched online about quant stuff a lot. If there are any other cool links you guys have, please DM me and I'll add it to this post. Thanks a lot.