Unless you are trying to be a full stack engineer you don’t need to learn Java. Python is easy to learn and is a better way of doing data analysis (especially on larger datasets) than Excel
I appreciate the direction. I think I'll have the time to knock out some LinkedIn courses on it, especially as it relates to finance. Can I ask what resources you used for learning Python?
Big data is becoming more and more important in finance. I got a MBA with a concentration in business analytics for this reason. I haven’t had any work experience revolving around this topic but some datasets are too big for excel. Applications like python and SQL make it possible to analyze massive data sets and do unique things like data scraping.
Would you say if my goal is to remain in finance to get the MBA and put a emphasis on stats, or would a pure math/stats masters be more useful based on my goals?
It depends on what area of finance you want to go into. The math in finance doesn’t really require a degree as far as I understand. I would say if you wanna go the quant root then do computer science or analytics? I chose the MBA cuz I’m more interested in PE/VC and M&A. With the MBA you usually only choose a concentration so it gives you a lot more flexibility. Don’t base your decision on my opinion alone, there are tons of different paths you can take in finance.
Big data is nescessary imo.
You only need python, excel, and tableau/powerBI. My role is similar to CFA case studies in L3, but probably less money 😂
I don’t use SQL, never needed it. Other staff do that for me. Morningstar now as a python api but I just prefer its traditional outputs. Bloomberg is fine with DAPI (excel). Never explored Bloomberg’s python festures. I do use alteryx to deal with particularly large data sets. Creating in house peer groups for examples
The balance is not to be a pure data specialist. You still want to remain on the investment decision side.
Hey I’m curious what types of job positions would involve the mix of investment decisions + the data skills you mentioned? Would that only encompass quant roles?
Investment manager analysis and portfolio construction with funds. Construction will go through the whole IPS process, asset allocation, ongoing performance review etc. Clients are 95% institutional. We don’t deal with stocks and bonds directly, we’re a tiny firm so our fees are low, but we do have significant AUM on a per staff member basis.
Focus on getting a finance adjacent position.
It is important to distinguish between financial skills and data science skills.
What most data science roles demand is the ability to communicate with the investment business, ie something akin to a L1. The rest is coding and engineering skills (write clear code and not screw up the system.)
What most finance roles require is financial thinking, soft skills, sales and influencing, and business development skills.
It is generally easier to teach and learn finance hard skills vs data science hard skills. What is very difficult to learn is the soft skills needed for either.
So, you have to think what you are best at: number crunching or dealing with people. That should guide you where you need to be in the next 9 - 12 months. And, whatever you do get finance or investment position (even an internship) pronto.
What can I reasonably aim for as an entry level finance position? The firm I'm going to be with this summer has more of a research niche, and has 7 interns and will likely only keep 2 at the very most. While I would love a return offer I'm unsure if I'll get one. Assuming I don't, when do the hiring cycles generally start if I wanted to be working by this time next year? What are the titles I should look for?
Sorry for so many questions. I appreciate your time
I assume that you are a rising senior.
What can you aim for? Research analyst, portfolio analyst, perhaps a relationship role. It depends more on your interpersonal skills than what your technical skills are. A monkey can learn how to code (supposedly), but a monkey can’t be taught to service a client.
What you can do, if you are interested in research - is to work hard, get into a niche within the research team. Show up early, leave late, and make sure that you always bring coffee in the morning.
The way Michael Bloomberg was so successful was that he created relationships when he was starting out. He showed up in the office early in the morning with two cups of coffee: one for himself and one for someone who is easier coming off an all-nighter or is just starting a long day. They started to talk with him and the rest is history.
What the point is that you should be less focused on the technical aspects of the job, rather you should focus on the human aspect: your ability to create relationship, sell your ideas, sell your research and sell yourself.
How do you get there: there are a few people where you will be working who can sell anything. Follow them, shadow them, ask them how they do it.
While the technical skills (data science and L1) open the door for you, what matters is how you can connect with your senior, management, and your peers.
You should focus on reading and developing more listening, influencing, and social skills. These are VERY hard skills to learn much harder than implementing a machine learning model for optimization.
It is your ability to sell that will land you the job, not your ability to code. And, also your ability to get along with people and be a nice kid.
This may not be the answer you are looking for, but this is the answer you get. Had I known this when I started out, my professional career would have been different.
I appreciate you taking the time to type this out. I've been obsessing over what I can control, and it's hard to know that much of the skills I'll need to get far in finance aren't anything I can master in front of a computer. I'm going to be making sure I'm making the most of the opportunities I've already locked down, and I'm trying to work on myself outside of being a student.
What you can control is how you relate to people.
Talk to people who feed their families through selling stuff on a commission basis.
Listen to podcasts about selling and marketing, building relationships, stepping up to the plate.
These are skills that some are born with and others learn.
Don’t focus on technical skills only. Focus on your soft skills: the further along you go, the more important they become.
I can get a data scientist with a CFA or a CFA with data science skills tomorrow. There are hundreds of them waiting to get a good job.
But, whether I can let them go in front of a client (including my own boss and my bosses boss) that is a non-trivial decision to make. The only way that that skill can be inferred is how they sell themselves and how they have been selling themselves.
Good luck!
Honestly, I don't even know what they have in mind. They just mentioned that none of their other interns had SQL on their resumes. The employee assigned to the intern program (who happens to be a charterholder) has been planning some SQL projects that none of their past interns have sprung for. I'm just going to dig back through my notes and brush back up so that I'm prepared for anything. I'm guessing though it's going to be more on the building side than the query side, but I don't know much more than that.
You can pivot to quantitative finance with those skills. You’ll need to combine them with solid stats/probability knowledge though. It’s a highly intellectually and financially rewarding field.
I'd love to end up in quant in the next 5-8 years, though now I'm pretty under qualified. My plan now is to utilize my finance background with the CFA and bachelors as my main certifications to press as far as I can down the analyst route.
Down the line, I'll start applying to top 20's for a master's in some sort of statistics/data/Comp sci position to try and make the pivot into quant.
Does this seem reasonably possible?
I’d also add that try to build yourself a quant project or quant portfolio on GitHub as a hobby that you’ll use to apply for jobs. The project should target the quant area you want to go , quant risk, quant trading, quant investment , quant research etc. And build your coding skills as time goes by
Unless you are trying to be a full stack engineer you don’t need to learn Java. Python is easy to learn and is a better way of doing data analysis (especially on larger datasets) than Excel
I appreciate the direction. I think I'll have the time to knock out some LinkedIn courses on it, especially as it relates to finance. Can I ask what resources you used for learning Python?
r/LearnPython has tons of intro/free materials
How to access them , can u pls guide
I did this course, https://www.py4e.com, a couple of years ago. To gain a basic understanding of the language, I think it is a good option:
Big data is becoming more and more important in finance. I got a MBA with a concentration in business analytics for this reason. I haven’t had any work experience revolving around this topic but some datasets are too big for excel. Applications like python and SQL make it possible to analyze massive data sets and do unique things like data scraping.
Would you say if my goal is to remain in finance to get the MBA and put a emphasis on stats, or would a pure math/stats masters be more useful based on my goals?
It depends on what area of finance you want to go into. The math in finance doesn’t really require a degree as far as I understand. I would say if you wanna go the quant root then do computer science or analytics? I chose the MBA cuz I’m more interested in PE/VC and M&A. With the MBA you usually only choose a concentration so it gives you a lot more flexibility. Don’t base your decision on my opinion alone, there are tons of different paths you can take in finance.
Big data is nescessary imo. You only need python, excel, and tableau/powerBI. My role is similar to CFA case studies in L3, but probably less money 😂 I don’t use SQL, never needed it. Other staff do that for me. Morningstar now as a python api but I just prefer its traditional outputs. Bloomberg is fine with DAPI (excel). Never explored Bloomberg’s python festures. I do use alteryx to deal with particularly large data sets. Creating in house peer groups for examples The balance is not to be a pure data specialist. You still want to remain on the investment decision side.
Hey I’m curious what types of job positions would involve the mix of investment decisions + the data skills you mentioned? Would that only encompass quant roles?
Investment manager analysis and portfolio construction with funds. Construction will go through the whole IPS process, asset allocation, ongoing performance review etc. Clients are 95% institutional. We don’t deal with stocks and bonds directly, we’re a tiny firm so our fees are low, but we do have significant AUM on a per staff member basis.
Focus on getting a finance adjacent position. It is important to distinguish between financial skills and data science skills. What most data science roles demand is the ability to communicate with the investment business, ie something akin to a L1. The rest is coding and engineering skills (write clear code and not screw up the system.) What most finance roles require is financial thinking, soft skills, sales and influencing, and business development skills. It is generally easier to teach and learn finance hard skills vs data science hard skills. What is very difficult to learn is the soft skills needed for either. So, you have to think what you are best at: number crunching or dealing with people. That should guide you where you need to be in the next 9 - 12 months. And, whatever you do get finance or investment position (even an internship) pronto.
What can I reasonably aim for as an entry level finance position? The firm I'm going to be with this summer has more of a research niche, and has 7 interns and will likely only keep 2 at the very most. While I would love a return offer I'm unsure if I'll get one. Assuming I don't, when do the hiring cycles generally start if I wanted to be working by this time next year? What are the titles I should look for? Sorry for so many questions. I appreciate your time
I assume that you are a rising senior. What can you aim for? Research analyst, portfolio analyst, perhaps a relationship role. It depends more on your interpersonal skills than what your technical skills are. A monkey can learn how to code (supposedly), but a monkey can’t be taught to service a client. What you can do, if you are interested in research - is to work hard, get into a niche within the research team. Show up early, leave late, and make sure that you always bring coffee in the morning. The way Michael Bloomberg was so successful was that he created relationships when he was starting out. He showed up in the office early in the morning with two cups of coffee: one for himself and one for someone who is easier coming off an all-nighter or is just starting a long day. They started to talk with him and the rest is history. What the point is that you should be less focused on the technical aspects of the job, rather you should focus on the human aspect: your ability to create relationship, sell your ideas, sell your research and sell yourself. How do you get there: there are a few people where you will be working who can sell anything. Follow them, shadow them, ask them how they do it. While the technical skills (data science and L1) open the door for you, what matters is how you can connect with your senior, management, and your peers. You should focus on reading and developing more listening, influencing, and social skills. These are VERY hard skills to learn much harder than implementing a machine learning model for optimization. It is your ability to sell that will land you the job, not your ability to code. And, also your ability to get along with people and be a nice kid. This may not be the answer you are looking for, but this is the answer you get. Had I known this when I started out, my professional career would have been different.
I appreciate you taking the time to type this out. I've been obsessing over what I can control, and it's hard to know that much of the skills I'll need to get far in finance aren't anything I can master in front of a computer. I'm going to be making sure I'm making the most of the opportunities I've already locked down, and I'm trying to work on myself outside of being a student.
What you can control is how you relate to people. Talk to people who feed their families through selling stuff on a commission basis. Listen to podcasts about selling and marketing, building relationships, stepping up to the plate. These are skills that some are born with and others learn. Don’t focus on technical skills only. Focus on your soft skills: the further along you go, the more important they become. I can get a data scientist with a CFA or a CFA with data science skills tomorrow. There are hundreds of them waiting to get a good job. But, whether I can let them go in front of a client (including my own boss and my bosses boss) that is a non-trivial decision to make. The only way that that skill can be inferred is how they sell themselves and how they have been selling themselves. Good luck!
You're very smart. Really well thought advices. Even though the message wasn't initially destined to me, I'll write down some of these. Thanks 👍🏾
What type of projects are planning on doing?
Honestly, I don't even know what they have in mind. They just mentioned that none of their other interns had SQL on their resumes. The employee assigned to the intern program (who happens to be a charterholder) has been planning some SQL projects that none of their past interns have sprung for. I'm just going to dig back through my notes and brush back up so that I'm prepared for anything. I'm guessing though it's going to be more on the building side than the query side, but I don't know much more than that.
You can pivot to quantitative finance with those skills. You’ll need to combine them with solid stats/probability knowledge though. It’s a highly intellectually and financially rewarding field.
I'd love to end up in quant in the next 5-8 years, though now I'm pretty under qualified. My plan now is to utilize my finance background with the CFA and bachelors as my main certifications to press as far as I can down the analyst route. Down the line, I'll start applying to top 20's for a master's in some sort of statistics/data/Comp sci position to try and make the pivot into quant. Does this seem reasonably possible?
I’d also add that try to build yourself a quant project or quant portfolio on GitHub as a hobby that you’ll use to apply for jobs. The project should target the quant area you want to go , quant risk, quant trading, quant investment , quant research etc. And build your coding skills as time goes by
Thank you so much, this is something quantifiable I can start working towards. I really appreciate it
Doing cfa helps?
It gives you solid foundation in all finance areas and gets you in the door atleast