On the buy side, is risk management considered front or mid office? Let’s say that the risk management team is actually doing trades for hedging only.
Mid Office.
Generally, if you are doing trades, that is a front office job. Almost all sell side traders spend a lot of time on “risk management”, in addition to other responsibilities. On the buy side, execution traders don’t even have their own PnL. If you are supporting the guy who does the business function, that is middle office. Of course, the line between FO and MO blurs sometimes. Not all FO jobs are equal, just like not all MO jobs are equal.
RM is usually MO.