It seems like I will be a third IT guy who tries to make a career switch to finance (other two are james_mk and comp_sci_kid). I’m wondering - how many other IT guys are trying to do the same? My story: I started working as a SOA consultant for one financial services company in the beginning of 2007. Then I realized that I need more exposure to finance and started preparing for CFA Level I exam. After SOA stuff I started to help them to implement their pricing engine (caps/floors/swaptions/bermudan swaptions/trinomial tree lattices to model Hull-White short rates dynamics/different types of volatility surfaces/calibration). Now I’m CFA Level III Candidate, passed FRM exam in 2007 and will take a CAIA Level I in couple of weeks. So far I decided to become a quant. Next year I’m going to study CQF (I have MS in Mathematics). However I doubt a little because it is pretty expensive (my company most probably will not pay for it).
Hi Baobab, me too. So there are four of us 
I work for a hedge fund as a senior software engineer so needless to say how important it is for me to know my financial stuff. But I do not plan to move to quant… I’m more interested in financial research. Peter Lynch is a good example of what I would like to pursue.
i wish IT would pay up so i wouldnt have to move
baobab, MS in math is not bad, i wish i had an MS in math, then tranistion would be much easier.
comp_sci_kid, I personally think that IT salary is pretty good. This is actually one of the reasons why it is difficult to switch career. Now I’m senior software engineer but if I try to get some financial analyst job I can hope to get some junior position which is twice less paid than senior in IT(I believe)
baobab Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > comp_sci_kid, > > I personally think that IT salary is pretty good. > This is actually one of the reasons why it is > difficult to switch career. Now I’m senior > software engineer but if I try to get some > financial analyst job I can hope to get some > junior position which is twice less paid than > senior in IT(I believe) Why would you take a half a pay cut? That is pretty crazy. If you dont midn me asking how old are you? The thing that bothers me with it, that i can max out at lets say 250k, but that will be like max and this salary this stay on this level (inflation adjusted) until i retire.
It seems like you didn’t understand me. I’m not going to apply for junior financial analyst position. I’m just saying that having 250k in IT (as you said) it is pretty difficult to switch to finance because position which pays 250k will require lot’s of financial experience (which we do not have). That is why it is really difficult to me to switch to financial analyst kind of job now. I’m 30 years old.
IT for an insurance co. Supporting investment research and portfolio accounting. BS in CS, passed L1 in june. No idea what I want to do, just took the exam to learn a little more about what I’m doing.
baobab, question is, will it be worth it? I dont really know
Hang on, if one of you guys is about to leave a financial sector IT job making somewhere close to 250K, kindly let me know when and where to direct my application. IT money is good, but not that good where I work.
Investment bank (front office/trading) or Hedgefund will be your best bet dlpicket. I didnt claim i make 250, i said that is the ceiling pretty much for IT only positions (Not management).
5th IT Guy - Bachelors in Computer Science, working as a J2EE SOA consultant for one of the Wall Street companies, writing software’s for Portfolio Managers (Asset Allocation/ Benchmark pegs) and generating Multi-Strategy portfolio reports for HNW Clients. 0% of which counts towards the chartership. I just have 5 years of work experience and have written software’s all days each of these 5 years could contain, so am pretty tired (saturated) of this field and want to move where my passion lies. And yes, I agree on taking the 50% pay cut, IT salaries (specially consulting roles - which get paid by the hour) are way more than entry level finance analyst. Signing up for the CFA was not a wise decision for me as I want to be a trader some fine day. Just cleared L1 in Dec-07 and failed L2 in Jun-08, not yet planned to re-register.
i am also in IT trying to switch into finance field. I completely agree with babob. I was looking at some financial analyst jobs and the starting salaries are between 50-60k, which is very less compared to what i am making right now. So, financially the switch is not justified. Moreover, the current market only makes the situation worse. Most of the investment banks and big financial companies are not hiring right now. babob you have a pretty impressive background…
>baobab, question is, will it be worth it? I dont really know I think that salary shouldn’t be the only motivation for the switch. I’m personally excited the way mathematician models financial world (continues time finance) and realized that I want to do this (but I still can be IT guy “partially”) . I also think that after entering into quant analyst type of job, eventually I will be able to switch to quantitative derivatives trading which is also interesting (and I believe more CFA related).
baobab, yes, if you have math background for it
baobab Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > quantitative derivatives trading which baobab - our profiles match quiet a bit and we want to do the same things in future. How do you plan to attack this position? what’s the best tool in the kitty to have sharpened before trying such roles? no CFA, CAIA, FRM, PRM… bla is going to take us any closer to the pit. I do think, studying some technical indicators and it’s applicaition on the real graphs could help a penny.
dinesh.sundrani Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > baobab Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > quantitative derivatives trading which > > baobab - our profiles match quiet a bit and we > want to do the same things in future. > > How do you plan to attack this position? what’s > the best tool in the kitty to have sharpened > before trying such roles? > > no CFA, CAIA, FRM, PRM… bla is going to take us > any closer to the pit. > > I do think, studying some technical indicators and > it’s applicaition on the real graphs could help a > penny. Ph.D in Math/Physics or MFE from top 10. Anything else will be a waste
Yeps comp_sci_kid - switching my gears towards MFE now. Would love to do it from NYU.
I also thinking of getting MFE or entering part time Ph.D (but this is long term goal). Unfortunately I cannot move to New York right now because of family reasons (I’m in DC) So far I decided that CQF (certificate in quant finance) is the only choice for me here…
My ultimate aim is to move from expenses side of my company(which it/back office is) to the earning side where my company MAKES money NOT spends it. I believe it is necessary if you want to move on further over the roof. Cheers