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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1833 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 8, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Calling your route (I assume) "pedigree" and my route "backdoor" triggers me, but thanks for the comment nonetheless. Here's why. The dictionary doesn't even reflect the new definition I see emerging online. It says:

  1. the record of descent of an animal, showing it to be pure-bred. "they are looking for animals with pedigrees"

    a pure-bred animal.

  2. the recorded ancestry or lineage of a person or family. "with a pedigree equal to many of the gentry"

So you're saying you're superior to me by blood, essentially. And yes, I know it's a metaphor, but let's be real, those that call math competition "pedigree" are almost all a different race than I, so it smacks of racial supremacy. What's even funnier is that I'm a Legacy American and it's racial supremacy for a different race that just got here. I have responded before that I have the actual pedigree, only to be told I can't prove it because all of my signals have been ruined by, well, people with superior pedigree.

Anyway, sorry for the TMI. I just figured I'd preempt other pedigree comments, since I've seen it all over X and already had this opinion formed.

Also I've chatted with self-declared people with "pedigree" that are less qualified for the job than me, but they're in the field. Yes they have a Putnam score at MIT, but I seem at least as intelligent and I know more of the math relevant to the topic than them. So in an efficient market, there would be a job for me.

Get used to being triggered. Quantitative Finance is famously ruthless and will chew out anyone with an ego.

If you think this sub talks about humans in a dismissive manner, wait till you meet someone in Quant. Quant alongside top AI-startups are the 2 most sought after jobs in the tech industry. They get 100k+ applications. They use ruthless high-pass filters before they begin to read resumes. Pedigree, prestige, track record....call it what you want, they serve the purpose of bringing a 100k applications down to a digestible hundred that are worth looking at.

I'm a Legacy American

So a white Christian whose religion tells him that lending money and working with derivatives is a sin ? (/s)

So you're saying you're superior to me by blood, essentially

You're putting words in the GP's mouth.

So in an efficient market, there would be a job for me.

The market converges to an efficient state given enough time. That time become near infinite if there is low discoverability, which is true for non-conventional candidates. Hell, Quant relies on the assumption that the market is always temporarily inefficient. And exploiting those inefficiencies is how you make money.

There are 2 ways to get noticed by Quant.

  1. Conventional - Ladder climb - Ruthlessly compete in a crowded field of elite candidates and consistently come out on top. This is the prestige path. Get into an ivy and out-compete fellow smart kids in math. Win math & coding competitions. etc. If you are in front of the line, you become the boring and obvious choice.

  2. Unconventional - Be interesting, be visible - This is a 2 parter. First, do something that makes you interesting. eg: Run your own backyard trading strategy and make $$, win big on prediction markets, be a world leader in an obscure nerd only card-game, make an open-source tool that all the trading people are using, etc. Alongside that, you also need to be visible. Find a way to get your face in front of Quant people (recruiters, employees, etc). If you are interesting enough and visible enough, they will give you an interview. This is the back door. It combines some unconventional excellence with network.

The paths are well defined. if #1 isn't for you, then do #2. If not #2, then idk what's left.

try to go all-in on coding instead?

I am not sure coding is going to be around for much longer

You're putting words in the GP's mouth.

No, he insulted my pedigree by insinuating I don't have one. If you look up the definition of pedigree, it's an insult to blood. I'm sure he meant school but that's almost as bad, especially by repurposing that word.

They use ruthless high-pass filters before they begin to read resumes.

Ruthless or just incompetent? If test scores aren't a part of your "ruthless" filter, you're just doing DEI for striver kids at that point.

Pedigree, prestige, track record....call it what you want, they serve the purpose of bringing a 100k applications down to a digestible hundred that are worth looking at.

So they are just lazy and incompetent? Maybe I don't want to work with them then.

So a white Christian whose religion tells him that lending money and working with derivatives is a sin ?

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2025%3A14-30&version=ESV

The paths are well defined. if #1 isn't for you, then do #2. If not #2, then idk what's left.

Is it really this bad? I can try to kind of do 2 but I'm not going to do anything I don't enjoy that isn't profitable. I kind of assumed a smaller form with some competent, legacy American hiring managers would be smart enough to interpret my résumé correctly.

Whining about the hiring practices of highly profitable and successful firms in a cutthroat industry because they won't give you the time of day is a very bad look.

It's silly to think the correlation between hiring competence and profit is 1. Or even over .70.

If hiring the right people has little relation to making money, I don't know why you think they'd care about your GPA.

Do you think hiring is the only factor in firm profitability?

No. But if you're hiring the wrong people, I don't think you will become a successful quant firm.

How successful do you think a firm that only hires people between the 98th and 99th percentile would be?

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