The Beginning

2023-08-06 00:00:00 +0000

This field, the quantitative finance job market is full of eager people. People eager for getting 6 figures anual checks. I was not different, I’m still working on it though. My goal is not just to have a 6-figures check itself. There are other motivations to get into this amazing world of quantitative finance.

Quantitative finance for me it started as a way to retire myself from pure software development. I used to work as a software developer (SD). Developers must forgive to me, but there is a point where one might feel doing the same every day (for sure in every industry is the same). Somedays solving bugs, another ones addig features to the system. In my experience, the best one was to manage people with deeper knowledge than you. You every day learn something new from them. If you are familiarized with terms such as TPS (Transactional Processing System), MIS (Management Information System), DSS (Decision Support System), and ESS (Executive Support System), probably you may understand my point.

Without need for getting into the theoretical definition, my experience at the beginning was mostly with TPS. For a guy that likes logic and mathematical models that is not so exciting. As SD the daily workload is based on definition provided by business analysts. They provide you the scheme of how the client expects the system will work. Particularly in my experience it was enriching up to a particular point. I was luck because my second job as developer was with a company which built (nowadays they do) its own system for fiduciary industry. Thus, during my experience there I was able to learn about mutual funds, financial portfolios, financial assets, how to price them, how they work in real live for back-office, middle-office, and front-office (for sure there will be another post explaining this). It was a revelation for me. Honestly I didn’t know what industry could fit best for me. I’ve always believed that someone specialized in some industry may apport an added value in him/her job. Then, I couldn’t stop thinking about capital markets. I didn’t have any idea about the future and how the technology has been changing the industry.

Once I got my decision of improve my professional skills in the finance industry I almost immediately started my bachelor’s degree in economics. I was almost finishing my systems engineering degree (I finished it a couple of months later). The reason was not precisely because I wanted to be an economist, honestly. The main reason was that looking into the job offers at the industry I noticed that one of the required professionals are the economists. You as reader should be aware that although my first motivation was not because I love economics, I do. I could say that the taste for economics was a collateral damage (the reason will be described with other post).

Next posts will detail a bit better the next steps in this journey as a quant!.