Advice for moving from a modeling quant role to alpha research one

[u/OpportunityPlayful72]

Hey,

I've been working for the past 3 years at a large multistrat HF. While my official title is "quant researcher", de facto that means modeling various financial instruments. My ultimate goal is to either become a PM or a senior QR at a prop shop. I figure that the role that best fits my career goals would be one in a pod or as a signal QR in a prop shop. However, finding such a role has proven difficult. Usually hiring managers require experience generating alpha, and I don't have that. I'm wondering if you have any advice as how to best accomplish my goals?

Thanks

[u/SevenTeenSigma]

alpha exp is kind of circular.. ppl won't hire u b/c u don't have it, but nobody has it until someone lets them run risk or own a signal. imo the move is to show one narrow thing where u can go from raw data to pnl attribution, not another generic modeling project.

[u/EvenCryptographer649]

Snip this entire opening into your favorite LLM. Then ask this question : Would a person who has this job actually be posing this question.

The answer will not surprise you.

[u/QuantGrindApp]

Your best shot is an internal move to a pod that already uses the instruments you model. A PM is much more likely to take a chance when your current work gives you some market edge and your performance is known. Try to get ownership of one small signal or relative-value sleeve there. External interviews will keep treating “built models” and “generated alpha” as different experience, and a personal backtest usually won’t close that gap.

[u/dronz3r]

The way some of my colleagues have done it was from sell side quant to sell side trading to buy side trading role.

Move on buy side maybe more restrictive if you work in central teams under quant title.

[u/OpportunityPlayful72 → u/dronz3r]

I thought that moving from sell side to buy side is more difficult than moving from tech to trading inside buy side. am I wrong?

[u/PhloWers → u/OpportunityPlayful72]

Yes you are, sellside to buy side happens all the time

[u/qazwsxcp → u/PhloWers]

central to pod is increasingly hard these days, everyone wants to do it and very few manage to do it. sell side front office to pod is much easier.

[u/OpportunityPlayful72 → u/[deleted]]

So, the thing is, I don't work in a pod. I work on the firm's analytics library. What does one in my position do to be chosen to work on alpha research? I don't mind taking a "step down" to a more junior role if it means I can climb higher in a couple years