Hi!
I would like to shift my career from being a (non-finance) programmer to the finance industry and I would be really grateful to hear your advice.
My main driving force to do this is to see the financial industry from the inside and get hands-on experience and valuable knowledge at how hedge funds go about conducting profitable trading.
I would be happy to work as a quant dev or later become an analyst, or basically any job that combines programming with finance.
I have an MSc in Software Engineering and about 8 years of professional experience as a developer. I'm working hard to study economics/finance/business/etc. via self-education and I think I'm slowly getting to some basic level of usable knowledge, but haven't got any serious qualifications yet.
To get my foot in the door, my current plan is to move to London and try to get a programmer job at a hedge fund, involving tasks that are actually related to finance and aren't "just" regular programming (e.g. implementing trading algos, working with traders), and work my way up from there.
And this draws my question: What further qualifications do you think would be worth me getting? I see many options, like CQF, a finance related MBA, or even a degree in Finance or Financial Engineering or a PhD in CS.
My long-term goals are a bit hazy at this point, so I would like to leave as many doors open as possible. I can see two paths that seem attractive to me now:
a.) Combining my programming knowledge with the financial that I would hopefully gain in the industry (and use it to build and sell my own financial apps, or even manage a private money pool).
b.) Entirely changing to a financial career and possibly moving up the ladder. (Although I realize this must be close to daydreaming...
)
Any input is very welcome and many thanks for them!
I would like to shift my career from being a (non-finance) programmer to the finance industry and I would be really grateful to hear your advice.
My main driving force to do this is to see the financial industry from the inside and get hands-on experience and valuable knowledge at how hedge funds go about conducting profitable trading.
I would be happy to work as a quant dev or later become an analyst, or basically any job that combines programming with finance.
I have an MSc in Software Engineering and about 8 years of professional experience as a developer. I'm working hard to study economics/finance/business/etc. via self-education and I think I'm slowly getting to some basic level of usable knowledge, but haven't got any serious qualifications yet.
To get my foot in the door, my current plan is to move to London and try to get a programmer job at a hedge fund, involving tasks that are actually related to finance and aren't "just" regular programming (e.g. implementing trading algos, working with traders), and work my way up from there.
And this draws my question: What further qualifications do you think would be worth me getting? I see many options, like CQF, a finance related MBA, or even a degree in Finance or Financial Engineering or a PhD in CS.
My long-term goals are a bit hazy at this point, so I would like to leave as many doors open as possible. I can see two paths that seem attractive to me now:
a.) Combining my programming knowledge with the financial that I would hopefully gain in the industry (and use it to build and sell my own financial apps, or even manage a private money pool).
b.) Entirely changing to a financial career and possibly moving up the ladder. (Although I realize this must be close to daydreaming...
)Any input is very welcome and many thanks for them!
