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Ask HN: How to break into finance from being a web dev

I am a web developer (~2 years out of school) and I work at a fairly large company. I've also had a passion for finance and in my free time, I write trading algorithms.

Although, I think I want to move into finance (HFT/hedge fund). Is there a path I can take or steps to take to get there?

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I just moved back here from NYC. I was working in automated trading. You want to apply to 2sigma and bridgewater. They value smarts over experience. You can also work for Chase, Citi Group, Citi Bank, CapitalOne.

If you wanna become a quant, or do anything related to actual decision making of when a purchase order is processed or when it's dropped. You'll need at least a masters in Mathematics or Engineering, and be fluent in C/C++ for finance.

I will tell you right away. As a developer even if you knew your stuff you'll always be a developer. When shit hits the fan you'll be the first out the door.

Lastly, you need to learn the language. You'll need to know all these terms that many will refuse to explain to you because that's what earns them value. Our director of engineering used to always say the only reason he still has the job is because he understand the language.

-- I worked at Citi Group.

Overall I hated nyc. I lived my whole life in California. Didn't have to wear dress cloths to work, didn't have to be at work at 7:30-8 am sharp, but the money was great.

I hope this helps..

All good points from swtf: especially on C++ and masters level maths. I'd add Python too; hopefully you've already had some contact with that as a web dev. Back in 2007 I was building automated rates market making systems in Python. Another big factor is market timing. Businesses that earn their revenue from trading financial instruments tend to have volatile earnings. Compare the year by year earnings of the investment bank at JP Morgan Chase vs the retail bank, credit card biz etc. So trading businesses have volatile earnings, but they also have high costs, and the main cost component is staff compensation. Which accounts for the hire and fire nature of the business. Times are tough currently, with HFT firms consolidating in the face of falling returns, and many large banks struggling too in the face of low interest rates and returns. There's a reason so much cash has crowded into VC; because there are few returns elsewhere. The last real hiring upswing was 2010, when the QE cash hit. In the big banks regulation and compliance are the only growth areas. Very boring work! So I suggest building your C++, Python, maths skillsbase, and waiting for the next hiring upswing. Trump & Brexit are bringing market volatility back, interest rates look likely to go up, maybe that will help trading businesses and we'll get a new growth cycle in financial markets.

I would add that the only other real market related finance jobs (that I know of) are in Chicago. There is a large commodity and futures market there as well as the Chicago Board of Trade. I worked at a clearing company there and it was really interesting and enjoyable. There are a bunch of prop trading firms here as well as execution services (which are interesting in their own right) and clearing firms.

Edit: I would note that there is a lot of C# work in the financial markets in Chicago. There is the C++ high performance stuff but there is also high performance C# as well as just plain ol' "normal" C# work.

This is something that also interests me, as a web developer with a mostly LAMP background. I live in Chicago and getting tired of just doing web dev for small business clients. I have hobby experience with C# (3+ years, built several native apps).

I'd like to know how to break into the trading industry in Chicago with this background. So far I've been rejected to every C# job I've applied to and I cannot try C# at my job as I'm currently unemployed.

I'm not looking to do high frequency trading algorithms (seems well beyond my scope), but I'd be open to writing finance-related tools that aren't performance intensive, if that makes any sense.

What level are you applying for? What types of firms? Perhaps you should deal with a recruiter as that is how I was able to get into the industry.

Find someone in the finance industry. Show of your trading algorithms in action.

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