Quote:
Originally Posted by Arsonism
I don't want to call y'all out but, damn that was a derail haha. Can't say that I'm not reluctant to hear that there's other folks out there. I don't want to break up y'alls conversation because there's interesting facts in them, like lifestyles and personalities to consider as well. That's something that I actually like to evaluate almost as much as the knowledge that I would be pursuing.
I think the biggest question was job security with machines like IBMs Watson (which I thought was a clever name) and other very sophisticated algorithms that can just run at the click of a button and some various input points. I can't say I speak enough for the field and that's why I came to y'all. Your background BigDog is very interesting, I'd ask you why you wanted to go through Electrical Engineering (that's where my undergraduate started out) and I also considered a life in Physics through my undergraduate as well [however the backing for my college lifestyle was threatening me if I went into something like physics and I didn't have a plan for life after undergraduate at the time].
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So the past 15 years in a nutshell... I started out in Physics since everyone in my family was an EE (grew up a stones throw away from what was Bell Labs) As I was finishing up undergrad, my main interest was in optical communication, so the transition to EE for my first masters. During this time period I did my thesis on silicon germanium nanowires and optimum growth patterns. As I was finishing up my masters, I became a bit disenchanted with EE and decided to go work rather than do a PhD.
I moved to Florida, and started working at a defense contractor building 5000lb warheads for about two years. During this time I started investing and managing money on my own, and realized I could make much more money in finance than being an engineer at a defense contractor....
I re-enrolled in school again in Chicago to study quantitative finance. While doing my 2nd masters, I got my first job as a jr quant trader, and moved up the ranks through the years until I was running my own desk. At the same time I was also finishing up my studies, and did finally do that phd.
In 2015, I pretty much hit my expiration date as a trader. My wife had it with me being up at all hours of the night, having everything boil down to "screw, i'll just put on more risk", etc etc. Chasing greed gets a bit poisonous...
Left the trading industry, wife wanted to leave the Chicago area all together after basically dedicating a good 8 years to support me in trading.... so she had her sights set on the Bay Area, and here we are now.
Now I keep myself out of trouble doing risk management for CCAR/DFAST banks as I mentioned above, and the new focus is on starting a family, with work being more of a tangential activity rather than the main one. Sure compensation wise it doesn't compare to my previous life, but the mental peace is more than worth it.