This article was contributed by Sarah Butcher, Managing Editor at eFinancialCareers.com. Photo courtesy of Laureen Missaire.
If you’re looking for a new job in quantitative finance in 2024, then you’re not the only one. Shaking off the post-pandemic job search torpor, quants are applying for jobs with renewed enthusiasm. It’s never easy to get a quant job. In 2024, the competition is more intense than ever.
In the first six months of this year, quant-related applications on eFinancialCareers rose 9%, driving applicants per job to a high of 42, compared to 35 in 2023. Together with private equity and hedge fund jobs, quant openings are some of the most hotly pursued on the eFinancialCareers site.
The good news, though, is that for talented quants, the job market is robust.
On the buy-side, systematic trading strategies are an area of increasing focus at many of the big multistrategy hedge funds. As Balyasny pivots towards systematic, for example, it’s got a new head of systematic arriving in the form of Francine Fang from Point72, who’ll be joining in 2025. Trend-following funds like Winton and Man AHL have recovered their mojo. Credit Suisse spin out Qube has been on a hiring spree and now employs over 1,100 people after growing assets to $20bn and opening a fancy new London office. Systematic credit is the new hiring hotspot as funds build teams in the area.
On the sell-side, Citi has a new rates algo team, founded last year under Jamie Mortimore, who was rehired from JMorgan. Banks continue to add to their quantitative investment strategies teams, while also building out teams of “strats” or data-focused quantitative engineers to help with the relentless push to automate as many processes at possible.
In the electronic and high frequency trading space, trading houses like Jane Street, Citadel Securities, Hudson River and others, continue to compete vigorously for the best staff. Jane Street’s UK arm increased headcount by 31% last year, to 636 people. Both Citadel Securities and Jane Street are pushing into the fixed income market and lifting talent from banks.
Quant headhunters confirm that they’re busy. Meraj Barham at Durlston Partners, says there’s particular demand for commodities quants as hedge funds and trading houses build teams.
Andy White, a headhunter at Upward Trend, says that as the quant hiring market matures, jobs are segmenting. “We now see much more awareness at funds and trading firms of which profiles are likely to succeed in a role,” says White. “Some jobs require proven ability to do cutting edge postdoctoral research, while others are more about communicating relatively basic ideas to non-technical colleagues. Some roles require a background in trading, while others will hire from academia or big tech. The best advice we can give to candidates is to be clear about where your strengths lie, and look for roles that build on those strengths.”
For the future, the question is what kind of impact AI will have on quant positions. Man Group has its own version of ChatGPT, “ManGPT,’ which is used by nearly 80% of its staff for things like finding and cleaning data, searching for uncorrelated signals at scale and working out the best route to market for a given trade. Russell Korgaonkar, Man’s chief investment officer, says the new AI tools are simply freeing up analysts to do more interesting and complex work. However, the suspicion will always be that this is a euphemism for fewer people, and that the work which remains will go to a subset of higher paid, higher-skilled individuals, while entry level positions fall away.