[drgiggles]

I work in quantitative finance and have wanted to to start using OCaml at work for years. I just find that unless you are at a shop like Jane Street with a well developed proprietary code base, internally developed tooling, etc, there just isn't the ecosystem available for me to be nearly as productive as I can be in other well accepted languages in the quant dev space...which is a bummer. It's been a little while since the last time I investigated this though.

[unstruktured]

If you use Jane street's base, core, and async libraries, you already have most of the tooling you need.

[gosub100]

It's brilliant if you think about it as an employer that wants to limit employee turnover. Great, you're an ace algo dev in OCaml, where you gonna jump ship to?

[lysecret]

Also in quant finance. Have you given F# a shot? We use it and are very happy.

[999900000999]

Any tips for getting a first quant job ?

Is learning C++ a must?

[drgiggles]

When we hire a junior person we are interested in math background, ability to communicate real world value of various models to our investment process and familiarity with computer science and software engineering concepts more than we care about experience with specific languages or technologies. That being said, C++ does still dominate this space so having exposure to it certainly would not hurt.

[trelane]

Who is "we" here? What is your approach for more seasoned folks?

[drgiggles]

I am a strategist at a smallish boutique quant investment firm. This is how we think about hiring a junior person. It's not all that different for a more senior person, but actual development experience would likely be more important, we would expect more contribution sooner from a more experienced person. More senior jobs also might have more specific responsibilities and therefore require more specific knowledge of technologies, etc. Many junior analyst roles support the team as a whole and there is less concern around experience with specific technologies, typically.

[999900000999]

Does Fintech experience matter at all. I'm still in the finance space, but I'm very much just an average software engineer.

I've been meaning to learn C++, but I always find it intimidating.

[renewiltord]

Doesn't matter. It's same as any tech. Need to understand mathematics and algos and have great fluency in code. Can't speak for the other guy but I suspect he's same: no amount of skill "aligning stakeholders" and "managing cross-functional teams" is of much use in the business if you're at a prop shop. Have to be able to write code. No "blocked on other team", "Kernel Timestamping API is undocumented" etc.

[detourdog]

hang out in bars around the office you want to work at.

[dkekenflxlf]

THX

actually, quite a good idea, regardless which sector!

[detourdog]

More generally it doesn't have to be bars. Go to where the people are that you want to meet.

[tomp]

No, C++ is useful if you want to work in HFT (where you're paid $$$ if you're a programmer).

For quants (progression towards a trader / portfolio manager), Python / Matlab / R is enough.

[DaiPlusPlus]

Get a Bloomberg Terminal - just for the social-networking features.

[xNeil]

$24k per year to get a job?

[DaiPlusPlus]

My reply was somewhat facetious; though I have heard some pretty crazy personal anecdotes about what happens in the Bloomberg chat service.

But even taken at face-value, Bloomberg's annual fee is comparable to the yearly cost of an undergraduate degree - so it might very well be a fair deal.

[wuj]

Good intuition in probabilities is a must.