How To Get A Finance Job From An Engineering Background
“It’s something very personal, a very important thing. Hell! It’s a family motto. Are you ready Jerry? I wanna make sure you’re ready, brother. Here it is: Show me the money. SHOW! ME! THE! MONEY! Jerry, it is such a pleasure to say that! Say it with me one time, Jerry.”
-Rod Tidwell, “Jerry Maguire” (1996)
“If I’m an engineering major, how can I get into finance? Show me the money!”
I find myself answering this question a lot, possibly because I’m from a non-finance background myself. Or maybe just because everyone wants to get into finance.
How you can leverage your technical background to land a job in the jungle of finance? As a technical person right out of school, you have two ways of breaking in:
1. Get an investment banking analyst position in the technology or TMT (Technology, Media & Telecom) group of a bank. You will use none of your quantitative/analytical background and instead use your interest in the industry/work ethic to get in.
2. Get a quantitative job at a hedge fund or doing trading/fixed income at a bank. You will leverage your quantitative and probability skills to get in.
Of the two, the second is easiest for most engineers. Wall Street has never been more quantitative, and it’s only getting more quant-focused each day. Even with some recent problems in the credit market and some high-profile difficulties at prestigious funds such as Goldman Global Alpha, this trend will not stop anytime soon.
Hedge Fund And Related Jobs
On-campus recruiting for these positions is less common than it is for banking analysts, but it’s there if you seek it out. Citadel, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, does undergraduate recruiting for its rotational program, as does Jump Trading, based out of Chicago.
The good news is that if you’re an engineering major