Spring Into Quant Finance Review
at G-Research
Insight / Vacation Scheme (< 4 Weeks)
Research
London
Review Submitted: April 2023
Overall Rating
5 /5
The Overall Rating is the average of all the ratings given in each category. We take those individual ratings and combine them into one final score!
5/5
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Overview of Experience
5/5
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Skills Development
5/5
-
Company Culture
5/5
-
Overall Experience
5/5
-
Recommendations and Advice
Overview of Experience
Please give an overview of the insight and what was involved on a day-to-day basis.
It's 5 days long, each day consisting of a series of workshops and/or social activities. The workshops included sessions on finance, statistics, machine learning, and programming. These all correspond to aspects of a quant researcher's job. The social activities included cooking class, hiking, tours (segway, boat, ...), and more. There was also a lot of socializing, networking, talking to current GR employees, and even the CEO and Head of Research!
What was it like understanding all about the business and potential roles available?
Very helpful. "Trader", "Software Engineer", "Quantitative Trader" and "Quantitative Researcher" mean different things at different companies -- GR seems 'pure' to these titles in that a trader just trades, whereas at other companies they might also develop strategies, et cetera. We got a talk from the CEO, about the views and values of G-Research, which was awesome, and also from the recruiters and head of research about what the different roles entail.
Please rate how insightful you found the insight
5/5
How would you rate the structure of the insight
5/5
Skills Development
Have you learnt any new skills or developed existing skills?
I didn't come in with a finance background and knew very little about how ML could be applied in finance, so I've definitely appreciated learning about that. We also developed a basic trading strategy during the Statistics session, which was fun and insightful as it resembles what they do on a daily basis as a hedge fund: trying to find market inefficiencies and come up with strategies accordingly. It's very stimulating intellectually.
How would you rate the training provided during your experience?
5/5
How would you rate the knowledge learned around industry-specific skills during the experience?
5/5
How would you rate the knowledge learned around personal or professional skills during the experience?
5/5
Please rate how the knowledge learned has helped you with regards to your career development
5/5
Company Culture
How would you rate business leader involvement during the insight
5/5
What was the company culture and general atmosphere like?
Surprisingly relaxing. For such a big company where an absolutely massive amount of money is at stake every minute, people are pretty relaxed and nice. There is definitely a very academic vibe, with many people actually joining GR straight from academia. New employees seem to be given a lot of time and training to learn about previous and current strategies, implying GR prefers long-term employees over short-term burn-outs.
How would you rate the inclusiveness of the culture?
5/5
How would you rate the networking opportunities?
5/5
Please rate how valued you felt during your insight?
5/5
Overall Experience
To what extent did you enjoy the insight?
I loved it and would do it again in a heartbeat. I've met a lot of wonderful and very smart people from all over the world. Many people that do the same type of research, many that work in totally different fields. It is an exhausting week, though -- many social activities, lots of fun, lots of work.
Please rate your level of enjoyment on the insight
5/5
Please rate how your experience met your expectations
5/5
Were you paid or reimbursed adequately for this experience?
I was paid and reimbursed expenses
Recommendations and Advice
Please rate the future employment prospects at G-Research
5/5
Would you recommend G-Research to a friend?
Yes
What tips or advice would you give to others applying to G-Research
Have fun with it. The puzzles they throw at you are genuinely fun to most people working at and applying to GR. If you hate them, there's probably no point in applying. A quantitative background is also necessary, although it doesn't matter whether it's physics, applied or pure math, CS, etc. I've seen all at the SiQF week!
Also, prepare well for the online test: it's definitely non-trivial, but doable.
Also, prepare well for the online test: it's definitely non-trivial, but doable.
