I have a friend who is a very successful futures trader and would like to become a professional. He is presently employed and has about 25 years experience as a computer scientist and statistician. Can anyone provide information about a trading firm that might be interested in his expertise. All replies greatly appreciated.
Why does he have to work for a firm? He can write his own trading software, lease or buy an exchange membership and trade as a professional.
Let me just say from first-hand experience here in Chicago - that anything a new prop trader employee puts on the firm's computer systems will no longer be his sole proprietary intellectual property whether IP rights and prior art have been addressed or not in the employment contract. And the firm may not allow him to bring a laptop or storage media with him to and from the trading floor. In fact, they want to herd you into the practice of parking all of your models and spreadsheets and databases on the firm's network. Many futures prop firm principals trade for themselves. It would not be a stretch to say that some of the firm's IT employees and network administrators would like to move into trading. Read between the lines. Since your friend is so technical and computing-oriented, this should be a very real concern for him.
No reason to go with a firm whatsoever, unless he needs an army of coders buidling his systems for him so he can focus on the task of research/trading.
There are plenty of ads on job websites where big banks and funds looking for quant developers for a trading desk looking to pay top dollar for esoteric expertise. Not sure how real the demand is but if you can get a nice basic salary while being exposed to different mkt strategies then thats the way forward......so the basic advice is to seek out a headhunter who specializes in these roles...
Maybe if he's a very successful HFT market maker. It's hard to recommend a firm for your friend to approach without knowing more about his style. Algo? Position Trading? Intraday grinder?