Finance Jobs of the Near Future

  1. Does an engineering/technical graduate with at least 5 years of experience under her/his belt and a CFA Charter have a competitive advantage in the finance job market of the near future in comparison to a graduate of any other degree program with a CFA Charter?

  2. How significant is data science in the financial services industry today? If it is significant today, how much more significant will it contribute to this industry in the future?

Besides an answer, you may also mention any links or references.

Really depends what the role is. I would say for anything involving models, forecasting or credit analysis etc then having a strong mathematical background makes a difference. I don’t know many people working as an actuary that are not engineering or mathematics grads. Still going be important going forward.

Markets are going more digital, l would say this is a more general skill set that sets you out in the crowd moving forward. You just need to look at how many online only banks have launched in the last 24 months, e.g. Marcus in the UK. Many institutions have recruitment heavily weighted to digital, technical/software.

Data science would be one of the biggest elements of this, alot of new teams being set up to both help get the infrastructure in place and secondly to use that into make decision useful information or to automate the customer experience. Either way driving productivity is the theme.

  1. Not enough information provided to really say if you have a competitive advantage, though engineers do typically fare well in finance.

  2. Answering this from a sales perspective (not sell side research), data scientists have been one of the most rapidly growing areas of distribution. Being able to identify key prospects and help a sales force be more efficient is imperative these days. Definitely an area with potential.

Why do engineers and computer geeks even consider finance? Stop entering this workforce, you studied for other endeavors. I mean use your knowledge and skills to construct robots, machines, software, because this is what you’re meant to do.

That’s one of the most ignorant comments I’ve seen in a long time…and that’s saying something coming from me. Engineering and finance require remarkably similar mental capabilities. Ask S2000. He’s an engineer. There’s a reason engineers are one of four professions that can give investment advice without a license.

As for computer geeks, while I’m not a fan of quants, there’s a huge market for them on the buyside, and a very big demand for them in data science.

Your comment was bad, and you should feel bad. We are all dumber for reading it.

Mathematician by education, but a de facto mechanical engineer when I was doing warhead design & manufacturing.

Actually, I expected such a reaction. And no, I don’t feel bad, cause this is my point of view. Engineers can do more global things like Elon Musk, discovering space journeys, introducing new future transport, developing AI, not finance. Why they even bother themselves studying how to analyze fin. statements, when they can do more global things? Did you spend your 4-years in university and money just to join the army of finance specialists where sits are very limited?

And do not call one’s point of view ignorant without proper reflection, it’s not good to be the smartest guy in the room. P.S. And it’s not Ethical.

What gives Elon Musk and others like that extraordinary success is their vision and leadership, not technical skills. For example, Peter Thiel is a direct parallel to Elon Musk, but Peter Thiel studied philosophy and law - he has no engineering training. And anyway, I doubt Elon Musk spends a single minute of every day writing code. Today, technology has great potential to improve the world and change the way we do things. However, what matters is the ability to apply knowledge to all sorts of scenarios, including finance.

Ditto ohai on the actual point. Regarding the part of my statement with which you seem to have taken offense, it’s a quote from Billy Madison. Ironically, you not knowing that does indeed make you ignorant…of awesome American comedic films.

At any rate, your comments in this thread are of poor quality. Good day sir.

Piggy backing on the above sentiments…

Trained mathematicians and engineers are in general (much!) better “problem solvers” than are traditionally trained finance folk (IMO, and including CFA Charterholder types). A mathematician or engineer with a bit of training in finance (like earning the CFA charter) can in some roles create much more value than most people in finance without their background.