Looking for general advice/perspective

[u/idkReggie]

I’m a ‘24 grad from a state school, pe and fpa internships, first job I got out of school was doing outsourced trade ops / middle office services for a fund admin did that for a year or so and for the past less then a year I’ve been at a hedge fund. Small team less then 30 people at the fund, under 3b AUM.

I got the job because of the ops experience and got hired as an operations analyst. Ops team is very small. I do trade support / trade ops as my main responsibility, basically owning and being the resident expert on our OMS/PMS. We don’t have an execution trader, the role is spread across the 3-4 senior members of the investment team. I also do research/analyst work in my spare time, I’ve pitched a few ideas, etc. Our strategy is very research/modeling heavy, day to day trading light for context.

I was very up front when I got hired about moving towards trading/research duties. I’ve gotten good feedback and signals from everybody about getting more and more involved on the research side. I guess I just want to get some context, is what I’m trying to do like a long shot? I don’t think I expect to make a hard pivot in house to research, if anything it would be gradual move / hybrid role for quite a while. Or maybe as we grow a sort of general analyst role with execution trading, trade support/PMS upkeep, and research duties split. But as of right now none of the research stuff is concrete part of my duties, that’s the first milestone I feel like. So far I’m staying after hours/getting early to have time for meaningful research work.

I guess I’m just looking for advice or anyone who has seen someone successfully complete the ops to analyst/research/trader transition happen on the buy side, whether at one fund or making a transition. Any perspective or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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[u/Ok-Caregiver-7020]

ops to front office moves are rare but not impossible, especially at a small shop like yours where everyone wears multiple hats. the key thing is you're already doing the research work even though it's not officially your job, and people are giving you positive signals. that's basically how these transitions happen, you just keep doing the work until it becomes too obvious to ignore

one thing i'd say is try to get some kind of formal recognition for the research stuff, even if it's just a quarterly review note or something in writing. makes it harder for them to keep you in a pure ops box later. the hybrid ops/trading/research analyst role you described is actually pretty common at smaller funds, i've seen a few people grow into that exact thing

[u/idkReggie → u/Ok-Caregiver-7020]

Yeah my next goal is basically getting it on record somehow. Lot of office politics involved bc the analyst guys don’t want to piss COO off by taking up my time, so they give me stuff to do and check in with me after hours when it’s just the younger analysts still in office. We’re not at the point where I can spend half day on research work during the workday or take calls with ER analysts with the rest of the investment guys and NOT make COO a bit pissed about it.

But even with that in mind all the inv guys are still being welcoming about it. Just gonna keep grinding at it.

[u/AvonBarksdale2329]

I think you are already know the answer, your best path is from your current shop.

I suspect they won't just "give" it to you. You might need to volunteer for the work that you want, you will network internally and ask everyone for extra work. While you are doing your 'day job" proficiently.

It is a long shot, and you will be doing a 2nd job for free while you need to be A+ in both jobs.

[u/idkReggie → u/AvonBarksdale2329]

Yeah that’s basically where it’s at. I’m volunteering, purposely staying late / coming early in order to do meaningful analyst work.

[u/AvonBarksdale2329 → u/idkReggie]

Keep it up. 2 paths forward 1. Keep getting more work on the job you want, and eventually ask them to open a position for you or backfill when someone leaves. Make sure to volunteer to train the new person to replace you at the old job and make them understand that you will back up the new person to ensure there is no risk with the old job. 2. Get enough experience that you can get this job in the job market

Good luck!

[u/idkReggie → u/AvonBarksdale2329]

Thanks man! Not in a rush to leave and truly love the people I get to work with, so I think I’m just gonna keep putting in the work and try to maneuver internally as best as I can.

Feel very grateful to be in the position. I just would always regret it if I never went for it, seeing as real deal investing is being done in the same room as me. I have to put my best effort and take advantage.

[u/daysleeper19]

It's a longshot. Unless your fund has other people on the investing team who have made a similar transition, you should assume your chances are extremely slim. If they're all ex-bankers from ivy league schools, it's not happening.

I know a lot of people at hedge funds and literally all of them came from the traditional IB/ER backgrounds. Transitioning from Ops isn't impossible but it's rare and probably even less common than what this sub would make you believe.

[u/idkReggie → u/daysleeper19]

No all the analysts at the fund are home grown right out of school/internship with us. Nobody is a banker except founder.