How much do quants travel?

[bcc]

Do most quants get to travel at all? I assume it would depend on the position(i.e. a quant portfolio manager would but a quant trader or developer might not), but I might as well ask people who would know.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

You mean travel as in "travel salesman"?
We used to have sales people coming to our work place to introduce their data services, trading models.
Informal meetings happen all the time over lunch, dinner to talk with clients, other people in the field just to pick their brain, gather intelligence or just build relationship.

If one's routine is go to work, go home without ever interacting with other finance professionals outside of their immediate surrounding cubicles, that career prospect is doomed.

A lot of learning is done outside or work via meeting.

 

[DominiConnor]

As Andy says, people who sell stuff travel, or if they are managing groups in multiple locations.

By far the norm is not even to move all that much around your building, much less go to other countries.

Networking is an issue for quants, and it is good that you've spotted that the lack of it slows you down. I put out regular announcements of quant events to 80,000 people in my social network, and even if you don't revceive that, a bit of googling will find seminars on financial maths, programming, etc in any major city.

There are large numbers of conferences in this field, and ones related to it.
Plus you understand that you must always try to maintain and expand your skills through education.

 

[Ken Abbott]

Quant managers travel occasionally. Quants typically don't travel much.