Back on track .... Just start learning it. If you have no programming background then C++ is not the place to start. C++ has various subsystems - for example the Standard Template Libraries (STL) and other features. You dont need to learn these first, but you will before you can be productive. Again, you are asking the wrong question: the variability in actual job duties for a "quant analyst" is quite large. What is your goal: To get a job as a "quant analyst", to build your own analysis/models systems, or to go in and assist a pure anaalyst with thier model building (which most dont need these days since they can use a tool like matlab or mathematica for the prototype or in some cases the production model) ?
I think building functions in C++ would be very hard for many traders ? I mean you don't have choice of having build-in functions like many proprietary platforms
I suppose the standard "hirable" skill set would probably be C/C++/MATLAB. .net and Java are "interpretted" languages, ie the do not compile to an actual native executable but run through a VM. This is considered a drawback to to many doing development in this area, as it's "slower". Now, that being said, I personaly do my coding in Java just because I can do it so quickly, multi-threading is relatively easy, etc. It is what I am most proficient at, and hence the actual coding of ideas doesn't get in the way and become an endeavor of it's own. I have ralery ran into a performance problem with it (java) being "slow". When I have had issues with speed, it's been doing some serious number crunching over years and years of previous price history, training a neural net, etc - never a "real time" app. If I ever ran into a performance issue for a trading system, I'd first just run the Java code through a native compiler or maybe just call C math libraries. For individuals, the bottleneck isn't going to be the language, but more likely network speed, etc. I personaly would say go with C# or java if you are looking into coding for yourself.. and although I use Java, with .net technologies you can do GUI stuff much quicker and easier. Keep this in mind though - proficient developers make a very good living for a reason, so don't set unrealisticly high expectations.
Actually the best developers dont make much and are at risk of being outsourced in the next couple of years by equivalent or better developers overseas. The typical skillset of the people that I work with include C/C++ - some shops use matlab but most dont except for prototyping systems. In addition you must basically be at the PhD level in several areas of mathematics and statistics. Without this type of background just knowing C/C++ wont help much ......
Decent experienced developers in the midwest are making 80-120k a year. Unlike NYC, one can live quite nicely here on that It's not i-bank work, let alone quant stuff, and academic credentials only matter for interns offshoring: It's a pipe dream. I was a Sr manager for an IT services company with over 3000 salaried employees in India, and EVERY project to my knowledge that we used them on blew up on us and cost us dearly. They would never admit this in public, let alone during shareholders meetings And to this day day they brag about the "seemless integration of offshore capabilities" as a core and unique competency in every press release, proposal, and shareholders communication they put together. Others I talk to have similiar experiences. People buy into this crack-pipe dream either out of greed or fear, but not reality ...
Not the experience with any of the firms I work with ... there are some firms that have not figured out how to manage hire and retain remote workforces (those same firms usually fail with their onshore operations as well) but I can assure you that there are many that have - including some of the worlds largest hardware and software OS development companies. Sorry to hear about your management experience .... .... these days either the offshore is directly controlled or the vendor is one of the big three offshoring companies which have figured out how to do things correctly over the last several years.
Well, I was the "asshole" that lead the outsourcing (read, not exactly off-shoring) RFP and vendor analysis that resulted in 3k IT people losing their jobs (transferred to the vendor and then summarily dumped). It was one of my "less proud of" moments. But even today, I believed it had to be done. As a *technologist* and a person, it pains me that people with 10-20-30 year experience being let go. However, the function was costing 2-3x the industry norm, with annual budget > $100M, and growing (as the systems become more and more legacy). An internal rewrite was costed at at least $400M (and the business won't pony up for that), so we started look outside. Sure, the final deal won't save the firm too much money, but it gives a lot of budgetary *certainty*. However, I was overruled (by the CIO), I preferred a vendor that was "competent", and he wanted "cheap", to put it bluntly. And the deal was signed over a #$%! $9M a year difference in price. Naturally, I resigned, and the deal blew up. Yep, I had a spreadsheet with all the functions, all the heads counts, all the previous 3 years budget. And I was expected to "high-level" (circle in red) what groups that should be "sourced". It was, I admit, the hardest 48 hours I ever spent in my life. I know that with 60-70% certainty, any group that I circle (!) would be done. Which is why I am trading today, much less casualties.
I disagree.. they claim they are doing it successfully, but I think its pure BS. I include the likes of IBM, etc, in that mix as well. Plenty of our clients thought they had successfully off-shored through us, but they hadn't. Our CEO was Indian, and he could talk rather convinvingly - but it was pure nonsense. An example: it ended up costing us 25M on a project for the state of Michigan, and it was a 15M fixed bid! But it's spun as success!!! I know very few people personaly who have successfully pulled it off.. sure, everyone knows of someone else who has, and many of the bigger companies claim so.. but it sure is tough to find someone who has personaly been involved in anything other then maint. or trivial development who has had a positive experience. We had over 3000 developers in our Indian development centers - that's not a trivial operation. By my research, we got well over 15x the productivity and ROI from our US developers. That's purely from a financial view - it doesn't take into consideration whether they produced anything of quality or not (they were a CMM level 5, so they should have been able to produce). It's the dark secret no one wants to talk about.
Well, all I can say is that one bad experience and bad set of managers is really not enough evidence to make a general statement. Your experience is not unusual though: there are many poor managment organizations and consulting companies about. Frankly your comments sound like commercials for your services: they dont reflect my experiences - nor do your numbers.
PRT, you are the one who sounds like hes running a commercial. LOL. And the comment about "if they can't do it offshore they fail onshore" is pure self-serving bullshit. Anyone with basic management experience or even training will know that the longer the string the more difficult it is to manage the ball on the end of it.