A model of active trading by using the properties of chaos http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1051200414003558
Clearly @globalarbtrader has given you some excellent advice, and insight, from someone not only involved in that facet of the industry, but without an agenda. I saw Renaissance listed as one of the funds so I’ll add a brief comment. They separate out the pure quant’s from the programmers and are demanding the best for both. Their compensation package is an outlier in order to get the best. I can’t speak about the programmers but for research they ideally look for a PhD from Stanford or MIT in pure maths or physics. A PhD astro-physics is desirable, they want to see someone who has handled vast amounts of data in a pure research setting. Someone with an advanced maths background who worked for a government agency involving cryptography is also a good candidate. Similarly a background in nuclear physics where the data for simulating reactions is truly enormous. The temperaments of such a group can get a little on edge at times so fit is very important. There was an occasion of a rather heated battle and they want to avoid a repeat. That being said, pure talent of the highest order will be given a lot of leeway, but you better have a Fields Medal. I know nothing about you so no point in saying more. You very well may have some traits that they find desirable.
I actually think you have a fair chance of finding a gig with your credentials (assuming you are well spoken and not an obvious asshole). PS. Given a choice, avoid jobs in the Borg-like places, RenCap and Citadel included. You will be a cog in a giant machine and your exposure will be very limited. A top tier multi-manager setup is best, a good smaller fund is good too. IMHO, obviously
UK, though most of those guys have NY offices. I'd probably add one or two names for NY, and one for Asia. GAT
Seems like a reasonable set of expectations of a candidate. Thanks for the list of recruiters, I'll be getting in touch with them shortly. I studied a module on non-linear dynamics which touch on chaos theory which I found thoroughly enjoyable so I'm sure this will be an interesting read. Thanks for the recommendation. You're right, @globalarbtrader has provided some invaluable insight, as have many other people in this thread which I am truly grateful for. It's great to see a community that is so willing to help exists in the systematic trading space! Thank you for the information regarding Renaissance, I was under the impression that I was somewhat under qualified for a position with them. In regards to data, I had substantial exposure to massive data sets in my masters research project where I was tasked with producing a machine learning algorithm concerned with improving the signal to noise ratio in particle physics data sets. I utilised the CERN grid (the largest distributed computing system in the world) to perform my analysis on ~6TB of data. If you have nothing better to do and would like to be bored to death then feel free to scan over my dissertation which you can find here: Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe particle physics is the most data intensive field in the world with the LHC producing a mind-blowing 30 petabytes of data annually (not accounting for simulations) which is only going to increase as they turn up the power / luminosity. I'm glad you think that, it's definitely encouraging Good shout, ideally I'd like to gain exposure of the full development line from alpha generation right through to execution handling.
You might ping Jeremy Robertson. He's British but operates from New York, so he knows both sides of the lake. I've enjoyed working with him.
I've hired many people through those recruiters but I absolutely would not use them for someone right out of school. Not worth paying a 30% markup. I've met a few candidates I would have hired had they contacted us directly but I decided to pass on because they weren't worth the fee. Just go gown your list and start talking to people. You might also want to go to FIA in Chicago next week.