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[CalTrader]

Quote from sle:

I'd say the reason americans steer clear of the quantitative and quant devopment jobs is the lousy math education in american schools.

* even these days, if you see no indian, asian or jewish faces, you probably pressed the wrong button in the elevator and exited on the M&A floor.

There are much better jobs than IB jobs and the numbers you quote are not typical and people should not believe them. The hours you quote are also atypical.

Another counterexample is to walk into some of the technology workplaces that you are not familair with, and yet produce advances that dwarf anything you are connected with in your day-to-day activities. You wont see a non-american citizen in these places. There are technology jobs for americans that represent levels of achievement beyond your experience but they are not open to foreigners......

 

[sle]

Quote from CalTrader:
There are much better jobs than IB jobs and the numbers you quote are not typical and people should not believe them. The hours you quote are also atypical.

The numbers ARE typical, any C++ developer with 4-5 years of industry experience and knowledge of the business can make ~$250K and any quant will be making 300K after the same 4-5 years after joining the industry. Junior people are hired at about 100K (total comp). Anyone who is hiring financial developers for less is doing a disservice to themselfs, it is as simple as that.

Quote from CalTrader:
Another counterexample is to walk into some of the technology workplaces that you are not familair with, and yet produce advances that dwarf anything you are connected with in your day-to-day activities. You wont see a non-american citizen in these places. There are technology jobs for americans that represent levels of achievement beyond your experience but they are not open to foreigners......

Dude, relax, I am not saying there are no bright Americans. There are plenty. I worked at JPL, it had plenty americans (and every immigrat that worked there was a naturalized US citizen) that were very very good at what they do. But there is not enough of them to go around. Education is only a small part of the problem (*), the main issue is that the demand for real top notch people is higher then their supply in ANY country. What I was trying to show was that the US manages to collect this kind of people from all over the world and as soon as you think about it in this way, the numbers start to make sense.

I believe that one of the strengths of the US is (and will be) the fact that it sucks up brains out of other countries. What do you think happends to people that work in overseas branches of American companies? They get moved to the US office. Same way American U collect best PhD's and postdocs from all over the world. If you talk to people working in overseas offices of American companies, you realize that almost all of them hope to move to the headquaters. Let's face it - US is the best country in terms of opportunity and very few bright people would give up a chance to come here (1). I am willing to bet that within a few years most of the qualified people that lost their jobs due to outsourcing efforts will have a job (in fact, we can make a HTUR rate vs libor swap on that

(1) Just a small fact - when unemployment hits 6%, America looks at it as a catastrphe, while in Denmark it has been around 10% for years now.

PS. I hope you would not contest that general math education in the states is lousy (for numerous reasons).

 

[misctrader]

Quote from CalTrader:

There are much better jobs than IB jobs and the numbers you quote are not typical and people should not believe them. The hours you quote are also atypical.

Another counterexample is to walk into some of the technology workplaces that you are not familair with, and yet produce advances that dwarf anything you are connected with in your day-to-day activities. You wont see a non-american citizen in these places. There are technology jobs for americans that represent levels of achievement beyond your experience but they are not open to foreigners......

CalTrader,

I respect your comments alot here on ET. However, I hate to admit that sle is right for this particular time.

You wrote,"There are technology jobs for americans that represent levels of achievement beyond your experience but they are not open to foreigners....."

Which places do you speak of? IBM? Cray? Los Alamos National Lab? MSFT? Sun? Which? As far as I can see, America is a pretty fair and equitable place now. If you qualify then you'll get the job for the most part. ANd all these top places have as many foreigner researchers as native born. It's not even an issue. Only talent is an issue.

Some of the cutting edge research like in quantum cryptography, nanotech, biotech are done collaborative among many researchers of all national background! That's how science and technology progresses. The fact that the top researchers maybe foreigners do NOT matter squat. That's what attract so many talents from so many countries to the great USA. I hope we'll keep that tradition.

As to the quant jobs, sle is right. A friend of mine came to the US from the philiphines went to a top school and went work for Saloman brothers and now at a major hf. All he had when he apply the job as a quant was his perfect GPA and great programming skills. He didn't know anyone. No connections. Nothing. 5yrs into the job and he's making 250-300K. In no other country can you do that. Merit is everything here.

So just work hard!

 

[gemini_315]

Quote from sle:

The numbers ARE typical, any C++ developer with 4-5 years of industry experience and knowledge of the business can make ~$250K and any quant will be making 300K after the same 4-5 years after joining the industry. Junior people are hired at about 100K (total comp). Anyone who is hiring financial developers for less is doing a disservice to themselfs, it is as simple as that.

sle and misctrader,

What kind of work are the guys that are earning 250-300k doing exactly? What is "quant"? Would you please describe in more detail what kind of work these people do, what kind of systems or programs they develop, what their skill set is, what type of companies are prepared to pay 250-300k for these people, are these people contractors or employees.

 

[sle]

Quote from gemini_315:

sle and misctrader,

What kind of work are the guys that are earning 250-300k doing exactly? What is "quant"? Would you please describe in more detail what kind of work these people do, what kind of systems or programs they develop, what their skill set is, what type of companies are prepared to pay 250-300k for these people, are these people contractors or employees.

An example from a headhunter mailing list:

PHD QUANT ANALYST- C++/VB - CREDIT RISK
Salary: $250++

Established financial institution has an outstanding opportunity to join their Structured Finance team in a quantitative analyst role. You will have an outstanding academic record, ideally a PhD . You will also need 4 years development experience with a financial software house, hedge fund, investment bank or trading company. A hybrid role the emphasis will be on Mathematical Modelling & programming so strong C++ skills are required. Although development based the role will involve quantitative Credit Risk analysis so an excellent Maths background is needed. This is a great opportunity to join a leading financial institution in a Quantitative development role.

 

[misctrader]

Quote from gemini_315:

sle and misctrader,

What kind of work are the guys that are earning 250-300k doing exactly? What is "quant"? Would you please describe in more detail what kind of work these people do, what kind of systems or programs they develop, what their skill set is, what type of companies are prepared to pay 250-300k for these people, are these people contractors or employees.

gemini,

they are posted everywhere on job boards! just look around.
though if you didn't know that already then you probably don't have the right preparation they are looking for...

 

[CalTrader]

Quote from sle:

The numbers ARE typical, any C++ developer with 4-5 years of industry experience and knowledge of the business can make ~$250K and any quant will be making 300K after the same 4-5 years after joining the industry. ....

....the main issue is that the demand for real top notch people is higher then their supply in ANY country. ...

...PS. I hope you would not contest that general math education in the states is lousy (for numerous reasons).

Very few people make your quoted figure as employees: The people I know at the major wall street houses dont make this number and for far less are working typical 60-70 hour workweeks. They all have at least 5 years in the business.

A few do make this and they are not C++ programmers/developers but are the design engineers that oversee the C++ programmers. I wouldn't characterize any of these as good jobs and I have never seen a shop that had good working conditions and treated their people well and I have worked at most of the major houses. I worked at Caltech and I know the working conditions: nobody is interested in staying if they have an alternative.

Your statements about the US attracting the best trained individuals is correct. However keep in mind that many of these countries train few of their citizens and the people that make it to the US are more typically the elite, and not people that had the opportunity to work their way up. In many of the countries the bulk of the population has little access to any type of advanced education.

There are many well trained american citizens that are well versed in advanced mathematics and its applications. My problem with your comments is that you make it sound like all americans are inferior when compared to any foreign trained student and nothing could be more untrue. One of my companies works on very advanced systems - advanced beyond any type of financial trading systems - and we have no trouble finding well qualified US citizens to fill these positions, the vast majority of which went through the public school systems.

 

[sle]

Quote from CalTrader:
In many of the countries the bulk of the population has little access to any type of advanced education.

Like Russia, for example? The fact that 72% of americans have a college degree does not mean that they have good education. If you look at any science/math PhD program, you will find disproportionate number of immigrant students.

Quote from CalTrader:
One of my companies works on very advanced systems - advanced beyond any type of financial trading systems - and we have no trouble finding well qualified US citizens to fill these positions, the vast majority of which went through the public school systems.

Since you declined to specify what your "very advanced systems" are all about, sounds like you don't know much about derivatives valuation. There are very few commerical fields on par with valuation of derivatives in terms of mathematical difficulty and computational complexity. I'd say crypto and CFD (or more general FE methods) are the only two that come to mind right away. BTW, for crypto, NSA regularliy rumages US-based PhD programs in topology and number theory and apprently they have no problem hiring naturalized citizen.

 

[sle]

Quote from CalTrader:
Very few people make your quoted figure as employees: The people I know at the major wall street houses dont make this number and for far less are working typical 60-70 hour workweeks. They all have at least 5 years in the business.

Name at least wall street firm that is paying less to the senior level quants and quant developers. All of them are employees. Now, people in the back office and pure IT surely make less, but we are talking about quants here, right?

 

[Mecro]

Quote from sle:

Name at least wall street firm that is paying less to the senior level quants and quant developers. All of them are employees. Now, people in the back office and pure IT surely make less, but we are talking about quants here, right?

Dude,

You are quoting numbers from a few years back. It is not so great anymore witrh 6 figure salaries everywhere.

Yes the jobs are out there and you can see them on job websites. But do you even realize the competition for those positions? You almost have to take pay cuts or deal with immense stress and absurd working conditions. I know someone who is in the exact industry you speak off and I have heard exactly what it is like. He has Ph. D. in computer science, C++ expert and has worked in the industry 4-5 years (a lot of those right on Wall Street). A few months back he was telling me how much he was really really sick of his current boss and was looking around for a job. He had interviews, got some offers and ended up staying at the same job. I asked him why, he was was getting more money at the other positions. He said that they were paying enough for the type of crap they expected from him and that maybe his boss isnt that bad anyway.

Go figure.