How I Became a Quant (2007) [pdf]

I wonder how fun being a modern quant really is. It seems like one of those things that sounds more fun in your head, but the reality is different. Kinda like "studying physics", going pro in a sport, or becoming a rockstar. People see the end result and don't see how much work it takes to get there or what the day to day is really like

Quant trading/research is one of those very, very niche fields that you likely only know about if you're:

A) A finance or STEM student at a fairly prestigious university, close to a major financial hub.

B) Belong to a certain social class where high finance is a known and respected field.

Of course, it has become more mainstream - simply due to the high comp, and high comp jobs eventually finding their way to lists with mainstream audience.

As a practitioner in this area, I’d say some of the authors here stand out as extremely influential to this day.

Clearly these include:

Cliff Asness (AQR is huge, lots of publications)

Ronald Kahn (early pioneer, standard book, successful ex. BGI people everywhere)

Neill Chriss (Almgren-Chriss)

Pete Muller (famous stat arb pioneer, PDT still going strong)

Not sure who I’ve overlooked.

(2007)

MUCH has changed since then.

that's a whole-ass book! I nearly crashed my poor little box, she barely has the ram to open 400+ page PDFs without my browser also being open.

Fake field for business majors to larp as programmers and make fake money off other people doing real work but muh market efficiency

Kind of reads 25 people's stories about "How I became a parasite". Why not create new things, instead of making a career out of leeching the wealth created by others?