How hard is it to get an engineering job at one of those investement/trading firms like Akuna, Two Sigmas, Citadelle...

Hard, even with connections. You gotta be that 10x-er kinda guy. You gotta be able to shit solid code like there's no tomorrow.

I am a trader at a top tier prop shop in Chicago. It is extremely competitive. I went to a top 10 school, studied physics, and had a 3.6 GPA and still washed out of most companies interview process.

SWE jobs are easier to get, but you still need to have gone to a prestigious university and achieved good grades. Since you are in the EU, look at the Dutch shops: IMC, Optiver, Flow traders.

>I am a trader at a top tier prop shop in Chicago. It is extremely competitive. I went to a top 10 school, studied physics, and had a 3.6 GPA and still washed out of most companies interview process.
I'm studying physics at a top 10 school. My GPA is fucked, but that's because I spent a lot of time doing research. I have first author publications. Does my GPA put me out of the running or could some side quant finance project get me to be considered for interview?

If you're GPA is below 3.5, or especially below 3.0, it will be tough to get interviews, especially since everyone knows physics degrees are usually grade inflated, depending where you study. However, once you get that first interview nothing else matters besides your quant abilities.

I would recommend a quant finance side project, that's what I did and it worked well to get me in the door.

>especially since everyone knows physics degrees are usually grade inflated,
Is it really? Kek, I should've paid attention to my classes. I know average GPA in my major is lower than much of the other majors. I fell for the grades don't matter and focus on your research meme.

What did you do for your quant finance project if you don't mind me asking? Are there any online competitions that I can do like there's Kaggle for ML?

Where do you go to school? At my program the average physics GPA was around 3.5 with a skew towards 3.7 since the profs want to keep the grades up so their kids can go to good grad schools.

>What did you do for your quant finance project
I made my own trading strat after a signal I developed from webscraped data and traded it live with my own money.

You need to be a woman or cut off your dick to become one.

>Where do you go to school? At my program the average physics GPA was around 3.5 with a skew towards 3.7 since the profs want to keep the grades up so their kids can go to good grad schools.
Top ranking Ivy, don't want to doxx myself.

>I made my own trading strat after a signal I developed from webscraped data and traded it live with my own money.
Cool stuff, how did you advertise it? Just listed it on your resume and talked about it during interviews? Did you publish your results on your own website at all?

Do you have any thoughts on Quantopian?

you can forget renaissance right away if you dont have a phd or/and are extremely talented

>Top ranking Ivy
nice, wouldnt worry too much about GPA then

>Cool stuff, how did you advertise it?
Yea, it was the first item on my resume, so it was what the interviewers were most interested in. Also I'm an accomplished mountaineer so I get risk taking on a fundamental level, which was helpful. I'd recommend you get good at poker, there's a lot of crossover with trading.

Never used quantopian.

>nice, wouldnt worry too much about GPA then
Lol, I hope. Only one way to find out.

>Yea, it was the first item on my resume, so it was what the interviewers were most interested in. Also I'm an accomplished mountaineer so I get risk taking on a fundamental level, which was helpful. I'd recommend you get good at poker, there's a lot of crossover with trading.
Fucking based. The Quant club organizes poker tournaments and quants from top firms get flow out to play in them. I should definitely pick it up during this quarantine. Thanks for the advice.

Anything else you recommend for someone trying to break in with a bachelor's degree? Any books or practical advice?

>Anything else you recommend for someone trying to break in with a bachelor's degree? Any books or practical advice?

-Don't be a dweeb, the job is highly social, so be a cool person that others want to work closely with. Also don't be the cookie cutter physics nerd that sits in his room all day studying -- go out and have interesting hobbies.

-Read Taleb's Incerto series

-Read "Heard on the Street"

-Read through every interview on Glassdoor for every company you're applying to to get a feel for their questions

>-Don't be a dweeb, the job is highly social, so be a cool person that others want to work closely with. Also don't be the cookie cutter physics nerd that sits in his room all day studying -- go out and have interesting hobbies.
I'm really into reading history books, classical literature, and writing. I'm Yas Forums and most people assume I'm some normal white guy major like Economics or Political Science but my hobbies are basic shit desu. I guess I could pick up Poker for more of a social one. Need to think of something more eccentric to pick up.

-Read Taleb's Incerto series
Done this, it's great and what made me really interested in quant finance.

-Read "Heard on the Street"
Will do

-Read through every interview on Glassdoor for every company you're applying to to get a feel for their questions
Will do

Do you think it's actually worthwhile to make a Linkedin for someone wanting to go into quant finance? I've always been paranoid of having my life story easily available to anyone who comes across my page

If you really want to stand out get into a hobby with risk taking elements, flying planes, mountaineering, etc. But I understand that's hard to do. Are you graduating this May?

>Do you think it's actually worthwhile to make a Linkedin for someone wanting to go into quant finance?
Not a necessity at all.

>Are you graduating this May?
Yes. I feel like I'm very much behind the ball with this, but I want to give it a shot. I have some offers for some other stuff, but would like to try this. I was originally planning on going to graduate school, but family situation made me have to work out of college. Why you ask?

>hobby with risk taking elements, flying planes, mountaineering
Damn, that sounds fun. Unfortunately, I'm not in the position to do that. Maybe parkour could substitute for this though? I could do that but might be cringe lol

Citadel is opening a new office in NYC, we are hiring there a lot more now

Dont fucking pick up a hobby to increase your odds at an interview. Thats some autistic cope jfc.
Holy fuck.

t. Ex Citadel and Virtu trader

Yea, you're really behind the ball desu. Maybe take a few months off to go travel/do cool shit? That's what I did. Parkour is super cringe.

>How hard...
Just. Fucking. Apply.
Take (small) risk and accept uncertainty.
What's the worst that can happen?
You don't get hired (rejection)?
Don't live with regrets of what you could have been.

To pile onto this, all my interviews focus on bfs/dfs, architecture, etc. Language agnostic, but C# and Python are good to know well.

And finally, Citadel 2xed my Google offer for total comp, even though this job is much more soul sucking.

>Yea, you're really behind the ball desu
Kek, I know

>Maybe take a few months off to go travel/do cool shit?
Corona isn't going to let that happen. Best to just focus on making a good side project desu. I've done good stuff in physics research, bet I can replicate it.