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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   2945 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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Is it worth trying to get into quantitative finance? My background is a CS degree from an okay university, which I went to for financial reasons (scholarship) even though I was accepted to Stanford. I just think my current JavaScript job isn't utilizing my intelligence fully and it's hurting my income, plus it's not as robust against AI as I would like. I currently use Codex extremely heavily and recently I almost never have to write code by hand, I just prompt. I've self-taught statistical theory to the master's level and I'm currently self-studying measure theory and stochastic calculus for quantitative finance. However, I've been told by one insider that many firms only want to hire people who did the Putnam or USAMO which I am too late for; never did these because I had no interest, although I think I would have done okay enough to get hired if I had studied as much as the median good performer. Should I keep aiming for quantitative finance or try to go all-in on coding instead?

Open an E*Trade account and trade your own capital first. Show that you’re good at it.

Piggybacking: i actually do have a personal account where I have been significantly beating the overall market for about 10 years now. Is there any way I can leverage that to get a good job in finance?

In terms of 'rock up at an interview with your account', unless you've shown spectacular overperformance or have generated a meaningful social media following somehow it's pretty unlikely to be able to get recognition. If it's more along the lines of 'Have been sitting in a big financial community for a few years, made friends with somebody high in the industry and they put a good word in for you' that's more likely to be productive but that's more complicated than pure performance.

Depends on whether earning roughly double the S&P for most of the past 10 years counts as "spectacular" enough to compensate for me not having a social media following lol. Didn't realize I needed to be live streaming trades on twitch for to a horde of teenagers.

No, that's probably not spectacular enough. 30% CAGR or whatever you're talking about isn't all that rare. An individual investor can realistically do that. It'd be harder with a fund's size. Speedboat vs cruise ship.

Ironically there's probably a market for that. Get a gimmic and enjoy your side hustle.

Yeah I'm not knocking the skillset just saying it's probably more down to being visible than actual skill level perse.

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