Quant Finance Jobs in Asian Bank
 

I am finishing my Ph.D. in Computer engineering from Nanyang Technological University and need to get my feet in the door. I am interested in areas of interest rate derivative, options pricing, valuation models, stochastic finance etc. along with coding.

I am particularly interested in Asian banks, or banks with a large presence in my preferred locations (Singapore and Hong Kong). Although I am a fresher, I hope to learn and progress fast enough.

My top choice is DBS, which I know has some quants in investment banking division, but I am not sure about the application process. I shot an email to their HR, but they sent a canned reply pointing me to the management/graduate associate programs, without making clear whether they are really the ones for quant positions. From some career talks at my university, I figured those programs are more for front-end, customer-facing positions, targeting general undergrads.

So some lead to any specific position (DBS or elsewhere, but preferably Singapore) or guidance in the application process will be really helpful. Cheers!

Those who are interested in banking quant jobs already got all the relevant internships and settle on their networks & sponsors earlier on. I think you are a bit late to almost finish PhD then start asking for application process.

How come never do the necessary homework during your school days?

That is DBS HR polite way of saying that they are not interested in you. In fact they see you as no different from a business bachelor grad when they ask you to apply for MAP.

You must bring something extra to the table besides just saying you have a PhD. Have you taken part and won anything in competitive banking or finance related initiatives? Any portfolio or prototype vetted by industry panels that can be used to pitch?

Thanks for the reply even though it is more judgmental than helpful.

The "necessary homework" did not include an internship because we, the Ph.D. students, are "employed" by our department throughout the year, for conducting research and teaching. We do not get summer and winter off like the undergraduates. I viewed my Ph.D. as a full-time job. As for the network, I had a few sessions (organised by my university) with people from J. P. Morgan, Barclays etc. but perhaps you know dedicated networking courses, sessions etc. are not parts of the Ph.D. curricula, unlike the MBA folks. That said, I have networks via collaborations, joint publications etc. in the academia and research community, who unfortunately do not belong to the finance industry.

I do not want to sound boastful, but I believe my CV justifies my four years for a Ph.D. at least in terms of skills acquired and some research publications. So anyway, my question is still unanswered about applications to DBS etc. If you have any information regarding that, particularly whether they recruit freshers without internship (but with good knowledge of finance, mathematics and coding) I will be grateful.

And most Ph.D.s from my university or NUS etc. are exactly in a similar stage, without an internship because Ph.D. is a job.

I'll be keeping a look out on this thread. This is the path I wanted to take so update me on your progress. Here's what I know.

Usually PhD in quant subject, namely math, physics, computer science, enter banks at Associate level, usually with a title of quantitative analyst or quantitative researcher. They want your familiarity with graduate level math - stochastic calculus, measure theory - to price their derivatives. So I'll say it's possible. Also, with PhD, I think good chance you can check out the MNCs - Goldman, Stanley and JPM.

Update me on how things work out.

I don't doubt your PhD knowledge. I affirm that dedicating 4 years to learning a technical subject gives you more in depth knowledge which will be applicable to industry. I'm just a comp sci degree holder and where I'm based, it's understood that the PhDs create the models and the comp sci degree's implement them.

Specific to computer science, it's something like you devising an algorithm to improve run time from O(n^2) to O(n) and I implement it in C# because I sure as hell can't do what you did.

How did the networking with Barclays and JPM go? I'm sure they could use PhD knowledge to do exactly that, improve their run time algorithms.

Might be old knowledge. But two years ago, I heard RBS trying to shift their database to the new platform, kdb. And with hardware enhancing technologies like GPU and FPGA to be used in finance, I would think you're well positioned for these positions.

Its not about being judgmental or what - fact is fact. That's how the game is played and if you didn't research and play it properly, you lose the game.

Nobody is interested in your explanation/excuses of why you don't have anything related to banking to present. Academia and joint publications on unrelated disciplines doesn't work in your favor either.

There is no shortage of good people all over the world wanting to be quants. If you don't have the necessary achievements, experience or network, then your CV won't even make it past first round - that is exactly what happened to you in DBS, a casual dismisal asking you to go their website to signup for generic grad program. And if DBS isn't interested, you can bet the other foreign banks will be even harder.

Sorry to break the bad news to you, but you should have prepared much earlier. It is what it is. There is no secret application process for either DBS or any other local or foreign bank that anyone can share with you. You can either apply through normal process (i.e. normal jobs) or cold emailing to all the bank HRs hoping that something will stick, but IMHO it won't work anyway.

Actually I agree with you this is a relevant area that TS can try and got chance, but unfortunately its a systems role quite far from what people will consider quant.

I'm not the original poster but the guy giving him some options.

I get where you are coming from. And I'll say it is true. But I'm trying to describe the scenario of the other say 10% that didn't take the usual route you describe, which I'll agree is the definitive way to get into banks after PhD.

I'm giving him the angle that the 4 years of pure PhD work should count for something in the eyes of the HR. The most common example I can think that out of the 10,000 thesis topics out there, the poster's thesis is the ONE thesis they're looking for. That's why I was specific in my responses which in summary is:

Bank could be looking for GPU programmer. OP did GPU research.
Bank could be pricing double barrier options. OP did stochastic calculus to price those options.
Bank could be looking regime state switching models. OP did machine learning research into that.

I'm really not wanting to sound smarter than I am. But since the OP defends his 4 years of PhD knowledge, that's why I'm trying, yes trying, to communicate him at that level. HR hiring a PhD probably expects someone who knows that specialized knowledge.

Basically, OP needs to find an employers who is seeking that very specialized knowledge the OP has. The matches brings the job opportunity.

I am in agreement with you here actually.

My post was not meant to denigrate TS's PhD. I was just explaining to him that he's got the whole quant recruitment expectation and process wrong.

I'm sure the banks will look kindly to his qualification on IT architecture or systems implementation type of roles and this could be his way of joining a bank. But that doesn't change the fact that joining as a quant upon leaving school is pretty much a no-go for him. Too competitive and he's missing too many critical ingredients.

Arh ... then yup, I agree with you. For a quant position, it's very unlikely. I've been around industry for a while and I know that there's a clear distinction between PhD in math and PhD in computer science. Again, it's very technical.

Imagine when the interviewer panel himself is a quant who probably went through the different levels of work to know the difference when someone should do the programming and when someone should do the modelling.

I'll bring it back to the poster. Given your knowledge, which research topic are you more comfortable handling:

1. Devising a new algorithm to search a 1,000,000 row dataset at O(nlogn) time?
2. Calculate the distribution at time T of a point, which starts at 0, whose dynamics starts out as GBM mean m0 and sd sd0 but sd changes to sd(t), a function of t, whenever the point is at a > 0 or b < 0. Sd switches back to sd0 when point is at a > x > b?

These are really the questions you'll have to be equiped to answer when they see you with PhD.

I understand what you say, but nothing happened to me at DBS becuase I did not apply. I shot an email to the HR and they advised me to apply for that associate program, which seems basically for undergraduates.

Anyway, leave that aside please, if you will. Tell me whether the DBS associate program is the right path to become a quant or not, if you are familiar with the typical pathway. I do not want to sit at a counter handling 100$ bill for customers, after going through that program.

Thanks a lot, sure I will keep posting. I am quite familiar with the topics like stochastic finance, some options pricing, Black Scholes etc. but not sure if DBS has positiosn like that.

Now, DBS is kinda reduced expectation honestly speaking, but good enough and I will be happy to work at their headquarter right here. While I am aware of behemoths like Goldman Sachs and Deutsche bank etc. I also believe the competition is infinitely more fierce, with superstar graduates from Cambridge or Stanford lining up for them. So...you get it. :)

Thanks a lot for posting this. This is precisely the kind of discussion/advice/criticism I was hoping for.

As for the problems you posted, I have some relatively sketchy idea about how to go on with 1. But if you are asking what I would like to devote my time on, and more confident solving (given some time), I will prefer the problem on geometric Brownian motion. And related problems in stochastic calculus, Black Scholes model etc.

Thanks for raising the issue in such a clear cut and precise manner. So given that 2 is my strength, does that make me more of a quant or more a developer? My Ph.D. is from the computer engineering department though, so there is some contradiction.

MAP is an accelerated program for developing leadership competencies through job rotations and coaching. It is not suitable for you considering your interest.

Don't think you are getting it yet. It's not about you and what you think about yourself.

There's no shortage of people who have interest or academics in Brownian motion or stochastic or Black Scholes (Black Scholes in 2016!?!?). These guys are applying to be quants by the hundreds all over the world.

You are missing the crucial additional things that are needed to give your CV a fighting chance. I rest my case. You will see how competitive and the hard realities of applying to quant positions in banks once you actually start sending CVs. IT and systems related jobs are your best bet.

All the best.

You have your points that I can't disagree with. But I'll be following the result of the OP's search as I mentioned because it's the track I wanted to take.

Yup, he missed out on the internships. But let's see whether there's other components he can rely on - his network, specialized skill set or publications.

My 2c on this.

By and large, I agree with what the 2 posters above are saying. Personally my recommendation is for TS to try his luck at boutique algo trading asset management firms instead of wasting time with the banks.

If you look at the current trends in the banking industry, by and large investment banking and trading related activities are scaling down world wide as margins are shrinking. This means lots of retrenchments and hiring freeze even for niche positions like quants. Supply way exceeds demand now, so it is very unfavorable for TS - making the situation worse.

Wealth management is the growth driver for the foreseeable future and most of the hiring is taking place in this area. Unfortunately this is not a business that hires a lot of quants so definitely the total number of quant jobs in the market is shrinking.

Boutique firms pay and prestige is not as good as bulge brackets, but the demand and supply imbalance is not that bad and maybe TS can gain some useful experience and go for the banks in the future when the macro conditions are better.

Good insight. I'll go a step further and say that the quant work the TS is looking for is NOT the quant work in wealth management. If I am not wrong, wealth management is all about sales and asset allocation. There is NO quant work.

Basically, wealth management is to allocate capital to various funds, can be discretionary macro, long short equities OR quant funds. The TS is looking for work in one of these quant funds. So don't both with wealth management.

Also, he mentioned about derivative pricing which is not a fund strategy. Derivative pricing is done by the banks. But I get what you mean by giving him alternative options.

I agree with you that the industry is shrinking, more so in Singapore. I used to search quantiative analyst and quantiative developer jobs in Singapore and they're becoming less and less.

Wow, nice to meet an ex-quant here.

But come to think of it, are you aware of any bank in Sg that is actually expanding its quant team?

I know for sure DBS is not hiring now, OCBC and UOB I am not sure if they even have quants. Haven't really heard any openings among the usual foreign IB...

i am not a quant and not working in financial industry, but i've been looking into a mine into a quant kind of role since 2012, and eventually give up in 2014. this is what i feel about the quant market in singapore. btw my background is EE and i did both gpu and fpga stuff for large scale high performance computing and low latency, near realtime application, plus i self studied stochastic calculus, derivative pricing and those quant stuff. so i am fairly familier with the industry.

during my 2 years trying to break into quant finance, i notice a big difference of quant position in singapore and those in london or nyc. most sg quant role ask for execl, sometimes vba as well, while most quant position in london and nyc ask c++, with a few java. i think this clearly shows that the real quant role as TS meant is not in existence in local banks. there're a couple quant role locally i remember asking more advanced technical skills, almost all from algo trading firm like virtu, or kcg.

i know a ntu physics phd whose thesis was on derivatives and liquidity modeling. she told me she did a master in financial engineering and could not find a job, so she continued with a phd, and still cannot find a quant job. eventually she joined an internet tech firm, and find some of the skills r still relevant and useful.

i myself tried to switch from ee to quant for 2 years, and eventually gave up, and switch to data science, which has a lot of demand right now.

i would suggest the TS while continue to.look for quant job, give data science a try. seriously it is much easier in terms of the math or statistics involved. i think quant finance is shrinking worldwide, may well give data analytics a shot

This is the market reality I was alluding to earlier. Thanks for sharing.

There's just way too many people looking for quant jobs in the banks and the banks themselves are spoilt for choice and are really looking for other qualities like network, some sort of business related achievement or prior experience. They aren't interested in a PhD guy like TS telling people how relevant his programming or academic PhD is.

Yup, I also second your opinion about the quant job market in Singapore. I occasionally browse through the bulge bracket banks' career section and very few, if not none, advertise quantitative modelling roles. Such work is done in NYC or London.

Further more, I think by nature quantitative trading has reached a point where you'll have to be that 0.5 percentile guy to have an edge in the market, thereby be employable. A little specifics here.

If we talk about algorithmic trading, the technology has matured to the point where in order for you to be relevant, you'll need to edge of your competitors by executing trades 100ms faster. In order for you to achieve that, you'll probably need years and years of testing different infrastructure (FPGA, GPU) or devising different algorithms (multithreading). I worked at a few companies where you could have a guy spend 6 months trying to gain this extra bit of speed but still not succeed.

While the TS has a PhD, I believe in his ability to conduct research. I also believe that he'll have to start from ground zero to think of novel ways to add value to the fund or bank. Really, companies will bring him on board if they project that he'll be that right guy to eventually add value in the future, like 2 years.

It's really betting on his ability to achieve something that is not yet defined. And that is a hard proposition to convince an employer to do.

Thanks a lot. You have put it perfectly. I cannot claim to be anywhere near the top percentile of candidates in terms of anything. My selling points are basically my strong mathematics and domain knowledge (how that knowledge transforms to bottom line PnL is yet to be tested), programming and my ability to do research on topics and develop it by original thinking.

So if anyone hires me, it has to be essentially based on evidence of mathematical knowledge (if they care about research publications etc.) and a promise of value in the future, not a proven track record in the domain of trading.

That said, I had a few motivations behind this thread, no offence intended to anyone. Sorry for making my reasons so long winded, and thanks for reading if you do.

1. I attended two career events in the quant divisions of J. P. Morgan and Barclays, intended for fresh Ph.D. graduates in non-finance but quantitative fields. The speaker at J. P. Morgan Hong Kong, for example, did his Ph.D. in physics, although about ten years back. Those people made the selection sound a little bit easier than I find it here. I fully expected to be grilled at the interview with questions from geometric Brownian motions to Ito's integral etc. and hoped that my academic credential could get me to the interview. But there was no indication that I have to develop a .1% faster algo before I join. But maybe it is their duty to be extra nice at career events and make it all look like a cakewalk.
2. I also figured that banks like Goldman to J. P. Morgan etc. are true behemoths, whether it is London, NYC or Singapore, and graduates from Stanford to MIT line up for those positions. Hence, my somewhat reduced expectation at Asian Banks, e.g. DBS or any other second tier banks like RBS etc. This is not meant to question anyone's credibility, but just reality as I felt it.
3. I saw a number of LikedIn profiles from similar or someone less impressive educational backgrounds working as Quants in investment banks, in HK and in Singapore. I do not have a masters in quantitative finance, but by self-study, I have mastered a number of important topics. I am not claiming it to be easy, but I felt I can convince a manager that I can learn fast and by myself even if my degree does not say quantitative finance. Now, it is possible that those guys had developed some impressive trading algorithm before they graduated, but kinda unlikely.
4. And this is the most relevant one. The websites of foreign banks like JPM, GS seem much more well-organised to quickly match my credentials with the open positions. This is not a job offer, but the application processes are very smooth and easy with detailed job descriptions, expectations ec. So it does not leave any ambiguity whether I am applying for the correct position. This is what I found missing in DBS for example. I did not ask for any secret process to give me an easy pass, but merely the standard application process for fresher quants as found in the JPM website. I should have made it clearer earlier.

ts i'm guessing u never work in a competitive place before right?

here's how the deal works for niche and high paying positions: they have to look for u, not u look for them in some website application form. if u need to ask online chances are gone case liao.

lets say i from barclays hiring for 1 fresh entry quant, i send out headhunters, send ppl to do campus roadshow, put job ads etc. i get 300 cv of various shapes and sizes all over the world. what will a normal hirer do?

1) go through the 300 see if anyone i know
2) filter out those with relevant exp
3) filer out those with relevant qualification
4) look for the best, preferably those with something beyond studies to show
5) take the short listed 10 cvs and ask ard the industry anyone got recommendations
6) cut down to 5 interviews
7) pick the 1 i like best.

do u think ur cv is gonna make it to interview stage?

but i tell u even above is optimistic scenario liao. many times the interviews are for show just to have proper documentation & governance. they already identify who they want before they even announce the opening. this happens in ib fo and trading jobs all the time.

I agree with your 1 to 7. But I disagree with your opinion that for all high paying and exclusive jobs, it's the manager that seeks out the candidates.

You are right in some ways. But in line with what the TS is looking for, the job applicant applying method does work, provided your resume and interview meets 1 to 7.

I'm speaking this for the entry level jobs at investment banks and funds, FO positions, quant or not. I believe you agree with me that the selection process is structured - applications opens through school recruitment pages or on website. And they hire in seasons, always like a mid-year intake. Those hired are the ones that has APPLIED THEMSELVES.

Your view is correct for like a 15 years experience portfolio manager or manging director. Yes, headhunters does facilitate the process. But for high paying entry level or 3 years experience jobs in FO finance, the traditional application through website does work. Again, assuming your resume is up to the mark. But there isn't the need for head hunters.

sorry i not clear.

of course big banks definitely must follow process. but a lot of times is many things are already discuss outside and then finally they just ask the candidate to apply officially so that they can proceed.

yar for entry position sometimes cold applicants can also get in provided they meet the all the conditions. my comment just generalize, not meant to say all cases like that.

can apply also no harm, but he needs luck beyond 3-sigma to get in. long story short, ts gone case liao.

Why always got this kind of post claiming passion in investment banking but somehow no effort made to network in the industry or go get relevant exposure.

To the TS, why don't you just apply all and see what you get?

I have friends in FO who have never attended networking sessions but yet get called up for interviews.

Instead of day-dreaming or asking if you have a chance, just whack and see what you get? It's similar to applying to an ivy league school. If you're an average, and not genius level candidate, sometimes you get one school but not another. Say you get Brown but not Cornell and vice versa.

Just apply all and prepare like mad for interviews. Of course, if you can network your way inside, that would be best.

Apply like mad with who? In this recession environment no bank in sg is recruiting for quant, at least not through usual job portal channels. Anyhow apply jobs you not interested is just wasting both party time.