AMA: I’m a career coach who helps quants get jobs at Citadel Securities & elsewhere.
Ask me anything! I’m Ash Cross, a career coach who specializes in both helping candidates achieve quant and quant trading jobs and who coaches students applying to the top Masters in Financial Engineering (MFE) courses.
If you want to work at top trading houses like Citadel Securities, Jane Street or Hudson River Trading, I can advise you on applications. I’ll be here, answering your questions from 13th to 19th February.
Hello Ash. Thank you for answering questions. I am considering applying for a Masters in Financial Engineering Course, but I have not studied maths at degree level. I guess this will make it impossible for me?
Hi there! It’s still possible, it’s just going to take a LOT of work getting those math classes in from accredited institutions. You need at least:
Calc I, II, & III
Linear Algebra
Probability
Mathematical Statistics
Sometimes Differential Equations is also required, depending on the program - looks good either way
Plus, at least 1 more upper level math course to be competitive, like Real Analysis, Optimization, or others.
This can take some time and get expensive if you’re starting from scratch, and you’ll want to think about how much time/effort it will take as well. On top of this, if you’re applying in the US, you’ll want to get a high GRE score.
Before you head that direction though, I’m wondering:
Are you applying for MFEs in the US, Europe, or APAC?
Why do you want to pursue a MFE? Are you hoping for a particular career outcome?
Where did you get your degree and what’s your major?
If you have less math, how strong is your coursework in other subject areas, like computer science, statistics, and finance? Usually you want to be proficient in 2/4 of these areas (including math), with some basic knowledge in a third area.
What kind of professional and/or research experience do you have? Internships count.
Are you familiar with Python and to what level?
These are all factors in considering which school/program, whether it makes sense to invest in a Master’s in this field, and how much work you’ll have to put in to be realistically considered.
My question is that I’m an Australian who is currently completing my masters in CS and have been targeting mainly QT/QR roles, my marks are on a different scale to GPA but basically 4.0 equivalent, from a top uni.
How do I stop my CV seemingly going straight into the bin when applying for intern or grad roles in the US or EU? The Aus → US/EU move seems to be a rare one but some people have done it.
Many applications note the need to have work rights. For the EU, I do have work rights, and when it comes to the US, Australians have access to the exclusive E-3 visa which is supposedly extremely easy for an employer to apply and get, it’s supposed to only cost something like $300, and since it’s inception the yearly cap has never been met. Though admittedly it seems like it’s exceedingly rare for employers to have heard of it.
How do you typically advise someone to overcome these barriers?
edit: I should mention that I don’t really have this issue when applying locally, so I assume my CV does check the boxes.
How do you navigate proprietary information and NDAs when building your CV? It can be difficult to quantify your successes when you can’t talk about them
I just wanted to ask something a bit meta: not just as a quant but as a person, where would you look to settle down on a 20+ year timeframe? I guess a lot of young, English speaking, qualified MFE grads (from good programs at least) can realistically start their careers wherever they choose to.
If you were in your 20s again - where would you go? And why?
Mainly because the pay in the US is materially higher than anything offered locally. And with the EU, the eventual move over to the US seems to be much easier. I’d also just enjoy a change in scenery!
Right now, a lot of US firms are defaulting to candidates with unrestricted work authorization, especially for intern and grad roles. Timelines are tight, and recruiters often won’t push anything that looks uncertain or unfamiliar, even if the visa is technically easy.
I’m not an immigration specialist, but I consulted with a couple colleagues regarding your question since they focus more on visas. (This is why it took me a little bit to get back to you.) They suggested doing a US master’s, which would grant you CPT for internships and OPT after graduation, which lowers the perceived risk for employers. I’ve seen at least one Australian student move into a US quant role this way. I can’t speak to the E-3 details in that case, but the student route made the initial hiring step much easier.
Networking also helps. If a team really wants you, they’re more likely to learn about something like the E-3 and advocate internally. But if the firm has a strict policy, even strong referrals won’t always help.
For the EU, since you already have work rights, focus on firms that regularly hire internationally or move people across offices. You’re right - moving to the US from a global firm in the EU might be helpful.
In practice, the strongest strategies I see are:
• target locations where you already have work authorization
• build direct relationships instead of relying only on online apps
Your CV is likely fine if it’s been working locally.
Good question. When in doubt about NDAs, ask your prior manager what you can and cannot share. You might not be able to talk about where the dataset came from or which strategies and models you used; but you can speak to scope, scale, and process/quality improvement.
Here are some ideas.
Data scale and coverage
• # of rows processed or analyzed (e.g., 50M–500M+)
• Storage or compute scale (GB–TB level)
• Years of historical data used (5–20+ years) - potentially
Research speed and efficiency
• Hours saved per week (e.g., 10–20+ hours)
• Time from idea to backtest or production
• # of backtests or experiments completed
• Conservative estimates of time or cost savings
Model and data quality
• % reduction in errors or failure rates (e.g., 5–15%)
• % improvement in model accuracy or stability
• % reduction in data quality issues or leakage risk
Adoption/business impact
• # of users, teams, or stakeholders using your work
• Scale of rollout (desk, region, firm-wide, global)
• Team size you worked with or supported
Talk about the generalprocess and the impact you made, not the frameworks used.
It’s a good question. While MFE grads can go almost anywhere, I don’t think most people would actually be satisfied everywhere. I see strong opportunities in places like Charlotte, Puerto Rico, or even parts of the Midwest where the quality of life and cost of living are very different from NYC or Chicago, but many students pass those up because they focus on prestige, salary, or traditional hubs.
If I were in my 20s again, I’d probably choose somewhere walkable or with strong public transit. Career mobility, access to top education (in case I wanted to pursue a Master’s or PhD later), and the chance to try new experiences like travel and meeting different kinds of people would matter a lot.
I also loved the beach, so I’d want a place that balanced nature with city life - and didn’t require a car. If I had done more research or had a mentor earlier, I likely would have explored parts of Europe as well.
I’m a CS student aiming for a junior quant developer role and currently building a C++ ITCH parser that reconstructs order books and exposes the engine to Python.
I have a few questions if you don’t mind.
From your perspective, is this type of project strong enough to be competitive for quant dev roles? What makes a project genuinely impressive to hiring teams?
How do quant firms typically filter candidates before interviews, and what commonly triggers immediate rejection?
If you had 10 hours per week over the next year to prepare for a quant developer internship, how would you allocate that time?
I have a longstanding interest in environmental sustainability (sparked by reading Amory Lovins when I was fresh out of university around the turn of the millennium). Unfortunately I have had limited success in pursuing this through my career, which has included stints at the Met Office and more recently with the Energy Systems Catapult. Could ESG in banking be an option for me? Are there ways in that aren’t restricted to graduate entry-level schemes?