Preparing for a career as quantitative analytist

[Mikkel]

Hello, I'm looking for any advice on how to prepare myself for a starting position as a quantitative analytist (quant).
I'm currently doing my Master's in astrophysics, where I for the last 1½ year have been practicting my coding skills, as I found myself gravitated towards the industry's data science and quant positions. I plan to take more courses that involve programming and I'm doing beginner projects on the side that involves machine learning.
What I'm looking for now is advice on how to proceed my preparations. I was thinking about learning the basics of C#/C++ for high frequency trading - seems useful, SQL and some basic finance knowledge.
I'd appreciate any advice and/or links to online courses and books you can recommend.

Thanks!

 

[Office_Shredder]

Given your post it sounds like probably not, but if you have a chance to do an internship at a trading firm that would both help you figure out if that's something you're interested in, and also give you a better chance at getting a full time job afterwards.

 

[Mikkel]

Given your post it sounds like probably not, but if you have a chance to do an internship at a trading firm that would both help you figure out if that's something you're interested in, and also give you a better chance at getting a full time job afterwards.

Thanks for your reply.
I've been looking into that, but it doesn't seem like they provide internships for these kind of positions.

 

[Office_Shredder]

Thanks for your reply.
I've been looking into that, but it doesn't seem like they provide internships for these kind of positions.

Your thread is a couple months late since I imagine most of them have closed their 2021 summer internship applications, but if you are going to be in school for a while longer you could apply for a 2022 summer internship, or you could just try to email them and ask if they offer off-cycle internships (I have no idea if that would work).

It does seem like it's easier to find a place currently accepting internships in the US than in Europe. I don't know if you can just do a US based internship, how the visa stuff works with that.

https://www.janestreet.com/join-jane-street/internships/

closed for applications for summer 2021, but they have internships in London

https://www.citadel.com/careers/open-positions/positions-for-students/?keyword=Intern%20trader

This says they have an open application for us interns right now. No mention of a London based one (they do have an office in Europe though)

https://www.tower-research.com/open-positions/?gh_jid=3075627

Another open application for a us internship. No mention of one based in Europe, but they do have a London office also.

I just searched for proprietary trading firms and looked at their websites, if you keep looking around you might be able to find something that works better.

 

[Mikkel]

Your thread is a couple months late since I imagine most of them have closed their 2021 summer internship applications, but if you are going to be in school for a while longer you could apply for a 2022 summer internship, or you could just try to email them and ask if they offer off-cycle internships (I have no idea if that would work).

It does seem like it's easier to find a place currently accepting internships in the US than in Europe. I don't know if you can just do a US based internship, how the visa stuff works with that.

https://www.janestreet.com/join-jane-street/internships/

closed for applications for summer 2021, but they have internships in London

https://www.citadel.com/careers/open-positions/positions-for-students/?keyword=Intern%20trader

This says they have an open application for us interns right now. No mention of a London based one (they do have an office in Europe though)

https://www.tower-research.com/open-positions/?gh_jid=3075627

Another open application for a us internship. No mention of one based in Europe, but they do have a London office also.

I just searched for proprietary trading firms and looked at their websites, if you keep looking around you might be able to find something that works better.

Thank you for taking your time to find and send these. I live in Scandinavia and would prefer to do an internship here, but doesn't seem like they're recruiting. However, sending an e-mail sounds like a good idea and worth a try :)