Software career at 38 after being a quant

As a quant, you should aim for management, not software development. If you still want to code, then pick a small (but funded) company where you can be CTO and still write software.

I'm only slightly older than you. You do not want a Jira job. It will burn you out. It's not the same as indie development... you will probably work on tickets, adding features no one really cares about or fixing bugs that you didn't create. It's awful. If you were a real quant, you can probably use your CV to get something a lot better.

I did the same thing! I was a Quant at asset managers / hedge funds and then I started a data analytics company. Eventually I got into alternative data and then my company was acquired by another data analytics company. I worked at the acquiring company for 2 years and it was actually very informative. I recently left to start a new company working on a mobile app.

When I was working at the acquiring company, they didn’t really have a good place for me. I had more domain knowledge than anyone else at the company but I had less experience with even the basic etiquette of how software reviews work (I.e. GitHub pull requests).

Coding as a quant and software engineering are really quite different. As a quant, you have to optimize for getting stuff done quickly at all costs. In software engineering, there’s more focus on testing, maintainability, and readability.

Eventually I created my own role as a technical product manager and that worked out quite well.

My employer, a venture investor, is looking for data scientists who understand finance. Our product uses Python, Django, and React like you mentioned. I don’t know much about being a Quant, so maybe we could help each other calibrate. My email is in my profile. Yours isn’t, so I’m posting this publicly, and anyone similarly curious should feel free to email me.

Do you need a job to support yourself or just to keep yourself busy. I would assume that if you have worked in finance as a quant for a number of years, you would be set for life. Sorry, if my perspective for this is all the quant salaries posted on blind.

> I am afraid that I may not be good enough

Just as with dating: there’s always someone you are good enough for. And you can build up your career from there.

You're definitely qualified for software jobs. Show off your sideprojects in your resume. You should not need to quit your job to get interviews based on your resume and background. I've interviewed candidates in similar situations as yourself (some with current jobs like lawyer).

Aim for small companies or early stage startups where they're more impressed by your determination than by your background in the field.

Happy to chat more with you or anyone in a similar situation, email in profile.

I started my career as a Software Engineer and worked in various domains (packet processing, performance optimization, hardware testing) and recently switched to an FPGA Engineer role. I know what you mean. I am "not good enough" too. I spend a lot of spare time on fundamentals. But, I am good enough to work with others. I am good enough to apply my practical engineering experience to whatever needs to be accomplished. And I am good enough to enjoy my work.

Many people do not consider the actual job requirements and skills necessary for the work. It's like, they're just trying to find the best person possible. Some people are even hardcore about this; they test you and judge you quite aggressively. That's cool, and there is some truth to that; there is a bar that needs to be met. But, it's a rather shallow perspective. And, it can have negative consequences. E.g. people burn out, get bored, don't work well with others. There's overlooked value in getting to know a person and positioning them well in a role.

You might be surprised. Your experience from side projects may translate extremely well to a "real" job doing similar things. If you can stay humble, work well with others, and spend time on fundamentals, I think you'll do well in the right environment.

As an aside, within the past year I've sparked an interest and appreciation for biology. In the back of my mind, I sometimes think it would be very fulfilling to work on software/hardware for biotech at some point in the future. Maybe a "second career" type of deal. I have massive "imposter syndrome" about that, but who knows... maybe some day my path will lead me there.

Hi there, I’d say apply to a couple of roles and calibrate as necessary. I relate to the feeling of not being “good enough” but TBH in the current market condition if you are able to either implement new features, find bugs or build new projects from the ground up, you are most certainly employable.

I’m currently working with a friend who is transitioning from retail investing to software development and the bar for an entry-level role is quite attainable.

Your quant experience could also land you in specialized software dev roles that might have to do with finance or data analysis if that calls your attention.

As for the tech that you mentioned (Python, Flask, Django), roles using those things are alive and well but feel free to explore other languages frameworks to sort out what type of role you might like more (i.e. flask is usually backend while plotly is frontend). Nowadays at least some passing familiarity with JS is useful because of how it everywhere.

Take a look at the threads like “who’s hiring” but see if you can leverage network connections to talk with people instead of sending a hundred copies of your resume everywhere.

Do feel free to reach out (email on profile) if you’d like to chat further and good luck!

I did the same thing and I’m so glad I did :)

I started as a quant but preferred building software so I left finance to software / data science consulting for a bunch of years and now am co-founder/CTO of a software company that just finished YC (AiSupervision W22).

My advice is to put together a portfolio website with some demos of your projects and well-documented code on GitHub and then create a profile on workatastartup / apply for jobs.

Good luck!

>I’m 38 now and seriously considering to move into a software company in the hopes that I can work on probects like my sideprojects.

If you think you will enjoy it, I don't see why not.

>Should I take a chance and quit my new job as a math and physics teacher (it just does not make me happy)at a high school to persue a position at a software company?

I think it's better if you quit your job after you already have found a job as a software developer.

You’ll likely find it utterly boring. The majority of your time will be spent on details and getting them right. But that’s probably true of being a quant as well.

My suggestion is that you get into data science or bioinformatics. You will be able to pick up the specifics easily, given your quant background, and there is a decent amount of software development involved as well.

> Should I take a chance and quit my new job as a math and physics teacher

Wait so you've already quit finance to be a math/physics teacher?

I’m disappointed in most of the responses here. I tried to go the tech path at 38 as well and everyone hiring shares the same biases about experience in outside industry and age. Its really a clown show once you try to get hired. I’m amazingly unhirable as an SE, but can find good consulting work in a matter of weeks outside of this bubble.

Just by curiosity, is there any particular reason why the math and physics teacher job does not make you happy?

In my opinion, it is a great work very valuable for the society, and that allows to pass your passion for science to children (those who are receptive). It can even be a bridge to some academic career.

Why quit before finding a new job? I never get posts like this.

My wife&I are your age and have worked at 6 & 5 companies respectively in our careers. Never have we quit a job before having found a new one, gotten the offer, accepted, and gone through background checks.

Why create an exploding timeline for yourself?

It sounds like you have enough to get started on this path. I would want to see a "full" project built and deployed if I were interviewing. It can be anything really, it just needs to be "real world" / complex enough that you had:

1) Make decisions about things, and did the required research to make those decisions (and can talk about what you did and why).

2) Went through the entire deployment lifecycle. Its really easy to just do the interesting stuff then call it a day, but if you have actually gotten to production with something then you are forced to address a bunch of tiny paper cuts along the way which will round your skillset out significantly when trying to get your foot in the door.

Normally I would advise against this: becoming a very good developer takes about five to ten years of experience and you would likely be taking a step back in your career without a major payoff (financially, for sure). However, in this case, a Quant who is already doing technical work, it seems more likely to be successful. The long term comp will likely end up being lower than just staying a Quant and aiming to move up, but if programming speaks to you, you are in a better position than most to switch.

One potential avenue would be to build a SAAS product for Quants with your existing domain knowledge. This would allow you to leverage your existing body of work and do the programming work you want to.

Good luck!

Given your experience, I'd target at first something in the big data / data mining / machine learning field rather than pure software engineer:

    - Much of what you have acquired as a Quant is potentially going to be re-usable

    - Becoming an actual SWE will potentially require you to learn a lots of new stuff (code review process, unit testing, large scale software architecture, code refactoring, OO, algorithms, code productionization, source control, debugging, etc... the list is very long) , and more importantly, you may have un-learn a lot of reflexes you might have acquired as a quant (of the "code, run once and throw away" persuasion)

Spend a year going through the CS curriculum for a good university. Buy the books, read them, and do all the exercises. If you find yourself looking forward to doing your nightly homework, great -- you have what it takes to be a great dev. Absent strong technical foundations, the upside as a dev is limited, and, more importantly, you won't get the super-interesting projects that you probably want. You can still get paid well, but you may find the work unfulfilling.

bro you've been a quant for 8 years at least, aren't you retired? :P

I'd keep on money rolling as a quant, or enter academia, or doing consulting as a quant. Don't waste that knowledge, it's super difficult stuff

I made a similar transition at 35. Have you looked at quant developer roles? They may value your experience and background more and be more willing to compromise on your software engineering experience.

One of the best data scientists I know started her career as a quant.

Don’t quit your day job until you have another one though, there’s no point in increasing risk

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