career in risk management

[vkaul1]

This is Vivek and I am doing my PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech in the area of Signal Processing/Image Processing.In addition I will also be getting my second masters in Mathematics with two courses in quantitative finance.
I was thinking of making a move to finance but I am not sure about what jobs will suit me. I personally would like a job with more quantitative and analytical work and less programming.What kind of jobs will you recommend for me and what should I do to get them(CFA level 1 and 2/FRM)? Will the risk management jobs be good for my background if I give FRM? Are these the only middle office jobs(less stressful) I can aim for ?
I am trying to sharpen my background in finance before I graduate at the end of next year.
Eagerly awaiting your reply.
Regards
Vivek

 

[chih22]

I work in risk management at a mortgage bank and have been interviewing around for other risk management jobs at other banks and investment firms. I have a CFA charter and am working on my FRM but I do not have a graduate degree or a super strong quantitative background in mathematics or programming. I have about 4-5yrs of relevant work experience which doesn't seem to be quite enough for VP or higher positions, especially in this current job market, which seems to require less programming knowledge and generally focuses more on firm wide risk management and capital management but it seems that positions below that such as analyst, senior analysts and research associates are generally expected be strong quants who are strong programmers and can build models for them. That's just my experience so far. If you are looking to get into risk mangement, it would probably be good to know at least one programming language relatively well.

 

[vkaul1]

Yes I know C++ fairly well but I don't want to be like a quant developer whose only job is to debug code and code fast under pressure. Is risk management the only option for middle office job with my background.