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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Notes -
For top end quant stuff, you kind of need the pedigree. But the backdoor option is still good. It may take some networking, but there are a lot of "support" roles for the quants themselves that are still highly technical. In my own lived experience I saw a lot of large scale infrastructure dudes get recruited by quant firms to help manage clusters that included specialty hardware (think high throughput I/O and memory caches). They weren't making crazy bonuses s like the quant strategists / implementers, but they were competitive with FAANG peers at cash plus level.
Perhaps the less triggering way to describe it would be "traditional" and "non-traditional". I know a couple people in the field who got in by doing a math PhD, deciding academia wasn't for them, and then getting referred by their advisor. That or specific quant finance programs seem to be the traditional pipeline for the industry. You aren't going to get your foot in the door without either that background, someone willing to vouch for you, or specific skills they need that aren't provided by their existing hiring pipeline (eg. hardware, high-performance computing, security, etc). The signal to noise ratio would just be too low if they interviewed anyone with a CS degree.
It's the same issue as with FAANG companies - sure, there are brilliant students who go to average CS colleges, but for them it's not worth the effort of interviewing dozens of duds to find an occasional hidden gem when sifting through applications for junior positions.
Unfortunately your competitors are in the top 1% at better schools and also did grad school or a specialized masters degree in the field. You can argue that it's unnecessary credentialism, but they are spoiled for choice when the salaries are high and supply vastly outstrips demand. If this is something you are genuinely interested in and you have the intellectual horsepower, why not go back and do grad school? Do a bit of research and find a research group with a track record of placing grad students at quant firms if they don't end up going the academic route. It's that or find some other way to distinguish yourself from the crowd.
Look having been in your shoes of sparkling-good-but-not-elite academic accomplishment, being a mildly autistic egotistical white guy getting moderately discriminated against in hiring and academic admissions. You don't have to be a quant to make money, always opportunities surfacing and trying to wedge yourself into the elite end of the System(TM) is not necessarily going to be the best fit.
Yes, it's galling that your SBFs or whatever occasionally get grabbed off the pile for having the exact right references and autism vibes to align with the hiring team, but that's life. Poke around stuff that interests you and there'll probably be a couple million dollars lying around somewhere.
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