<p>someone brought this profession up in another thread, and it actually sounds more like my thing than ibanking/hedge funds. but, how does the pay compare? do financial engineers make large bonuses? steep pay raises? or static pay that hovers only slightly above their starting salaries? also, is there any sort of analyst/associate/vp/md like hierarchy in the profession? are jobs really hard to find? and does one wait to get their MFE until a couple years of work experience? and where would they gain this work experience?</p>
<p>Most financial engineering majors end up working at hedge funds. There needs to be a key distinction made between ibanking and hedge funds: ibanking and hedge funds are ABSOLUTELY different. IBanks are the sell side, hedge funds are the buy side. Secondly ibanking (M&A) is not what hedge funds do. Hedge funds trade any financial products out there to seek absolute returns. Financial engineering deals with pricing and modelling which are very important at certain types of hedge funds (deriv. arb, statistical arb, high frequency trading). Most Financial engineering majors nowadays seek to get into a top quantitative hedge fund. There actually is no position called "Financial Engineer". Financial engineering majors work on the trading floor, risk management department, asset management firms etc.</p>
<p>At a top notch quant fund...it all would depend on your performance. Its like any other job. You perform well=you get paid well. The best guys can make great cash. People who eventually start and manage top quant funds like Jim Simons and DE Shaw make absolutely disgusting (in a good way) levels of money. Last year Jim Simons made 500+ million as personal comp (he was second place). However, most guys arent going to be the next Jim Simons. If one does reasonably well it should be the norm to accept upper mid-high six figure salaries in five-six years in the job.</p>
<p>what are the working conditions like? hours? high stress?</p>
<p>Its not a 9-5 job thats for sure. However its not 80-100 hour crunch week like in ibanking either.
The thing with developing trading strategies and then trading them is that the results are black and white: you either make money or you dont. When whatever you are working on loses money you will probably be stresses. A lot of it is performance driven and in the marketplace stress is a common periodical issue.</p>
<p>can you get into a top MFE program straight out of undergrad? or does one work a couple years before applying, traditionally, like MBA programs? and if so, where would one usually work for those couple of years? is a degree in econ/math alright for this track? thanks</p>
<p>Totally depends. Most top funds have in house classes taught by guys who have real world experience. People who are successful as quants or quant traders rarely go back to school. They have already learnt from the job. </p>
<p>However if you cannot land such a job straight out of college you can apply to MFE programs. They do take in people straight out of undergrad who are competent. Otherwise you would probably work in a quantitative environment (such as in S&T in ibanks) then possibly apply as a lateral to these quant funds. If you arent successful you head off to MFE programs and then go off from there.</p>