Can I get hired with these qualifications?

[Four]

Hi, I'm hoping to work as a quant developer one day. I have a few questions about how to get one's foot in the door for someone with my qualifications.

A bit about my background: I was recently accepted to the master's program in computer science at NYU. I'll be filling the electives requirement of the master's degree with a bunch of financial math courses. I am a decent C++ programmer right now with mostly academic experience, but have been working as a web developer for the last 4 years (and have a lot of web development experience).

Do you think I can get a front office C++ programmer job with these qualifications? If so, is it possible to move into a trader position eventually if I pick up financial math knowledge at school? (I'm studying computer science because I don't have the required math background for a financial engineering program and a comp sci masters gives some flexibility if I decide to go back to IT.) Thanks for any feedback!

 

[Andy Nguyen]

What kind of web development have you done?

 

[Four]

Mostly front-end, a bit of back-end. I usually use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, XSL, PHP, and MySQL on a daily basis. I'm one of the lead front-end developers for a major internet site (~ 60 million unique visitors a month).

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Get into the CS program. Use your NYU career services and networks to find internship at one of the banks or hedge funds.
Look into Python, R, C#/.NET
Backend sql skill would be useful. Learn how to optimize your queries.
Play with API such as Interactive Brokers to put together a system that can suck data, back test, submit order, etc.

 

[Four]

Get into the CS program. Use your NYU career services and networks to find internship at one of the banks or hedge funds.

Thanks for the feedback! I wish I could do an internship, but I'm in my 30s and can't afford not to work, so will be doing grad school part-time. Any chance of being hired by a bank without having done an internship?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

You are better technically equipped than a lot of MFE students so there is no reason you shouldn't get a job. What I wrote above is what they are looking for. I know a lot of banks are even looking for people with excellent sql skill.
https://www.quantnet.com/forum/threads/learn-sql.7554/

Don't be too picky with your first job and don't expect front office/trader kind of job. Your goal is to get in with your skillset. Front office is shrinking while people seem to avoid mid office where jobs are more plentiful.