Need A Job? David Shaw’s Hiring (Deal Breaker) Are you among the 30 million Americans who have lost jobs over the past six weeks? Or the 3.5 million kids about to graduate from high school or 1.3 million from college remotely, sans cap-and-gown, and now facing the worst job market imaginable and the prospect of working from the back foot economically for a decade? Are you not among the lucky bankers allowed to keep their jobs for now? Did you not get one of those gigs at Citadel or HSBC? Well, you’re in luck, because someone else is still hiring: D.E. Shaw & Co.
DE Shaw interviews are one of the toughest quantitative interviews on the Street. Probably only Rentech is tougher. They hire math, compsci, physics, hard sciences majors from the top tier IvyPlus schools. A friend of mine from college got an offer from DE Shaw. He turned it down to go work for Saloman Brothers. This was back in the 90s. He had a perfect GPA and is a very smart guy at an institution where everyone was already at or near the top of their high school class to get in. We still keep in touch though I don't work in quant finance/trading anymore. I work in tech and trade on the side. So, the fact that DE Shaw is hiring doesn't mean it's available for your Average Joe. Starting salary right out of college is already six figures plus bonuses.
Being a quant doesn’t make you a good trader. They are just there to automate a good trader’s (David Shaw’s) strategies. Same with Jim simons. None of these guys can make it on their own.
that is what I think too. look at the 150 Phd Simons hired to work on daily swing, not so impressive as close to medallion fund.
I had an interview at DE Shaw in 2005. the question was really tough, since I did not prepare any such questions before going there. At that time, I was not in the job market. I was invited by his firm to apply for a scientific position there (some people in his firm constantly searched resumes online to find good candidates). I gave a scientific talk. After talk, they led me to several rooms, each room has someone to pose different hard brain teasers. unless you have crammed for similar questions, it would be quite tough.
True. Some quants later on become quant traders. But they usually start out being glorified overpaid software engineers with great math skills. ROFL. But after a few years most quants are in the $450K-$500K range. And if they get into quant trading instead of just being quants they make low 7 figures with hardly any risk. I think few professions can offer such pay with little to no risk for smart analytical people besides Big Tech. I know Tech Leads make about $500K-$600K at FANG companies too. So comparable.
curious, what does this "trader" do if their strategies are automated? do they relax in a hammock all day coming up with ideas?
Not exactly. Despite the system being "fully automated", they still need to be babysit. The traders mostly babysit the execution of the trades to make sure it's performing as planned. Also, there are programming errors, things going down, etc. Thousands of unplanned things that can happen that the programmer/quant didn't account in the software that happens in real life. But most quants find that job "boring" because it's not as intellectually challenging as building complex math models and implementing in production. So a lot of quants stuck being quants forever and top out at $500K/yr which in itself is a decent living though probably not that great if you live in NYC, London, Singapore, HK, etc. Very expensive cities. Definitely upper middle class income. The quants who have guts transition over to quant trading in some years pull down 7 figure bonuses. In mediocre years, they get little to no bonuses. In really bad year, they will get fired!