Career switch from IT auditing to Financial Engineering

[odunayo]

Hello everyone,

I have been practicing IT auditing for over 7 years now, but interested in developing a career in Financial Engineering with particular focus on commodities risk management. My background was in Agricultural Engineering but I never practiced for a year after graduation save for lecturing and doing research in simulation of air-spray droplets using QBASIC prog lang. This was about 10 years ago.

I have been the following questions:
(i) What are my chances?- in terms of employability
(ii) Through some research, I have identified that MFE with Risk Management Institute of the National University of Singapore will be suited to my needs. It's run in partnership with Berkeley-Hass I understand. What is your opinion about MFE programme at Risk Management Institute - National University of Singapore. Now I know many of you guys are based in the US, but would appreciate your comments based on your experience of any NUS alumni in your workplace or the marketplace in general.

Any other relevant advice on how to achieve my goal will be appreciated. Thank you

 

[Andy Nguyen]

i) Many people have successfully transfered from IT to finance internally within finance firms. Those who did it are with relevant programming and finance experience. Others have joined MFE programs to enable such a move.
ii) NUS is relative unknown in the US but has good brand name in Asia from what I read. Many students who couldn't join US-based MFE choose NUS/NSU. If your plan is to work in Singapore/Asia, then it seems like a good choice. Not sure how much the Haas partnership affects the tuition, course material, but it probably provides you with certain degree of recognition.

If you plan to work in the US, then study in the US is essential. Location plays a big part of one's employability.

 

[odunayo]

Thanks a million Andy!!! especially with the phrase that 'location plays a good part in employability'. I actually live and work in the UK with an Investment Management firm. There were a couple of programs i was considering before i stumbled on the NUS programme. MSc in Financial Risk Management at ICMA centre-university and MSc in International Securities and Investment Banking with the same school but the content does not appear as rich as the ones i saw in NUS-maybe it's perception though. Thanks a lot.

 

[quantma]

Question on IT jobs in finance

Guys,

I am not sure if this is the right place to ask this question, but I hope to get some suggestions from this forum.

I have abt 10 years experience in IT, mostly programming -- java/j2ee based applications. I like my job and programming in general, but don't feel challenged at all.

I have feeling that programming jobs with investment banking firms/trading firms could be the right fit for me so I searched many job sites for these jobs and almost all of them required knowledge in fixed income, Fixed Income, Currency, Commodity and strong background in modeling financial application.

My question is how can I get these skills without enrolling into a FE program. Is there a certificate or non-degree program that I can do?

I have B.S in Computer Science and M.S in Information Management Systems.

Thanks

 

[Andy Nguyen]

You should probably read John Hull at least to have an idea of the financial products. There are books about anything that you can pick up to learn on your own but since you don't know which product you will be working on, it's really hard. No MFE or certificate program will teach you about a specific product.
As for certificate, there is CQF program by 7City. I don't know if it's a good fit for you but you can do a search here. Dominic Conor teaches C++ in that program.
I don't know much about the employability of CQF in NYC.

 

[quantma]

Thanks Andy. I will research into the CQF option and post here.

You should probably read John Hull at least to have an idea of the financial products. There are books about anything that you can pick up to learn on your own but since you don't know which product you will be working on, it's really hard. No MFE or certificate program will teach you about a specific product.
As for certificate, there is CQF program by 7City. I don't know if it's a good fit for you but you can do a search here. Dominic Conor teaches C++ in that program.
I don't know much about the employability of CQF in NYC.