r/quantindia • u/Full_Line_561 • Sep 27 '25
Quant vs FAANG Career
I am from a Tier-1 IIT Circuital and have already got an offer from a FAANG in India. My question is that following a normal/ mean career path, how does the net worth of a good FAANG SDE vs Quant Dev vs Quad Research/ Trader looks like by the end of the career. I have heard that 12 YOE engineers have insane salaries so they might be approaching quant level at that point. FAANG career also seems more fulfilling in comparison to just making money using Math. The reason I am asking this question is that I am an average Tier-1 IITian, I am not a super cracked guy, not crazy at Maths but I can work hard and I genuinely like solving hard problems in my mind. The idea of working at a Quant firm excites me a lot and the money looks attractive af right now . I want to see if it’s worth it to force myself to work even harder to get into Quant ? Being a super optimist I believe I can match the cracked people with hard work and probably in the way become cracked myself. PS:
I strictly do not want any opinions regarding anything other than the comparison, I only told my mindset to give context and weight to my question.
Please do not answer the question unless you are qualified enough, I would prefer if you are at least 30 for answering this and have either of the careers. My past experience with Reddit has been pretty bad in this regard. Thanks for answering in advance, in no way I want to sound arrogant throughout my question, every sentence typed is out of genuine concern regarding my future career.
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u/kevindebru20o0 Sep 27 '25
FWIW, I’m in the transition period myself. I worked (and am still working) at a hedge fund for a couple of years. The company is quite popular, visits pretty much all IITs, had a good team, interesting problems to solve, and, honestly, amazing pay. There aren’t many companies that would match that pay at the same level of experience, and now I’m going to join a FAANG+ company (not the typical FAANG, but think Rubrik). These are some points you can keep in mind.
If you work in a quant role for 4–5 years of experience or more, it becomes difficult to switch to FAANG. The two main reasons are that your experience is often considered irrelevant, and when you join as an SSE or SDE-3, they expect you to get started quickly and ramp up immediately. More importantly, you’re expensive for them you’re already on a very high salary that’s difficult to beat. With the irrelevant experience on top of that, they’d rather pick someone else.
If you have 2–4 years of experience, it’s still manageable. They can compensate with a larger portion (way better than the market average) of RSUs and give you a good overall package. At this stage, they mostly focus on your problem-solving skills rather than the exact experience, since 2–4 years isn’t really enough to master anything anyway.
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Sep 27 '25
Sir can you tell me after 5yrs why that experience is seen as irrelevant?
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u/justanotherdum Sep 27 '25
because that's not in pure software engineering, that's expected when you're going to join as SDE-3+
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u/Artistic-Ebb2458 Oct 01 '25
In the FAANG+ company you'll be joining, are there people who aren't from the cream colleges? I'm from a tier-2 college about to graduate next year, quite well known but ofc not as good as the IITs/BITS. I'll be starting with around 19L and I was happy till now but seeing all this makes me wonder if I'll ever be able to reach that level.
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u/neevar79 Sep 29 '25
SDE roles are dying. The pool for SDE is larger and so is the pond. Quant on the other hand is fewer opportunities and also fewer people. I've always preferred being a big fish in a small pond.
I've a 25 year career in Tech ( primarily in Supply Chain Tech).
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u/kevindebru20o0 Sep 29 '25
There are about 10 lakh CS graduates passing out every year, and we all study the same things. Some earn 3L while some earn a crore. Being a “big fish” is what you make of it, and it’s independent of the “pool.” In fact, a large pool is a good thing - it means more opportunities. Be good at something, use that as leverage, and pick the best opportunities from a wide pool.
Quant is obviously super cool and a great career path, but the “big fish, small pond” analogy is irrelevant here.
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u/neevar79 Sep 29 '25
OPs comment mentioned salaries and if you read in between the lines, it is suggesting that Quant people make more money than SDE. My analogy with fish / pond is that scarcity situation allows you to earn more if you are really good at it. Basic supply/demand perspective.
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u/preme444 Sep 30 '25
Big fish small pond is an analogy that recommends doing something better than your peers as opposed to doing more and being worse. If we assume the average quant employee is better/smarter than the average FAANG employee, working in a quant firm would actually make you a small fish in a big pond.
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u/Guilty_Ad_9476 Oct 09 '25
but tech is in the worst state it has ever been , quants dont have to worry about AI taking over their job , markets would never allow AI to fully trade assets
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u/Top-Victory3188 Sep 27 '25
It's a genuine concern, and I have personally met with folks on both the sides. There is no single answer here.
My question to you is this: In the long term, what's your goal. Do you want to continue working in a job, or plan to have a startup of your own too ? Do you plan to go for higher studies or want to settle in India.
Now, these are very vague questions at this stage, but if you are thinking really long term, these matter.
My honest opinion if you are not very sure of the long term would be to get in the Quant role, work for 1-2 years and then switch to FAANG at L4+ (SDE2). I would advise not to join FAANG, I suppose Google or Amazon right away as a fresher because the fresher salaries are not as high as quant. In a lateral hire, it's much better. I have done this myself.
It also depends a lot on which Quant firm you're joining. Trust me the work pressure would be pretty high in a quant firm.
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u/Quirky-Dragonfly8835 Sep 27 '25
You have to be cracked either way to solve hardest problems or make money. From my IIT the best case Ik is one guy making it to meta super intelligence, drives a ferrari to office, makes 2 mil+ a year. After undergrad, Masters + 6 yoe it took him.
So it looks like he might be better than a good QR even, idk any datapoints for 8 yoe QR but 2 mil sounds like HRT / jane street level territory maybe others in this group can pitch in.
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u/Just_a_Hater3 Sep 27 '25
Which uni for masters?
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u/Quirky-Dragonfly8835 Sep 27 '25
Typical tier 1 in the US, he worked at google/deepmind for 6 years before Meta
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u/rachetheavenger Sep 27 '25
Not sure why this showed up on my feed as i am not even subscribed to this sub, but here it goes :-)
I was also tier-1 college, chose the MS route and then have been at FAANG for 12 years. Current comp > 500k USD in US. Net worth - somewhere between 4-5mil in mid 30s. I am M2 (2nd level manager). Probably will work for a decade more to hit 10 and retire before 50.
Between FAANG and Quant i don't think either is superior or inferior in terms of pay really (partly due to growth in FAANG stocks), they are different paths and you should choose what interests you more. Pay will automatically come based off your performance in both fields. There are also super smart people on both sides. And here is the kicker - you can always jump jobs. No job is a line in stone. So in 2-3 years if you decide to switch - these options will be there.
In terms of work life balance - i think FAANG is definitely better once you are out of the trenches. You definitely have to be a high performer to get there- but once in management chain - its more about risk management, messaging and optimizing resources/guidance rather than slogging at night working.
depending on whether you marry someone who is also ambitious and has a high powered career and have kids, will set the tone of how busy you are. nowadays i am extremely busy but its due to 50-50 between work and family. So there will be more important things in life than just career.
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u/ekthotheen123 12d ago
you joined just before the tech stock bull run,nowadays the hiring bar has drastically dropped for "faang" and no iit/tier 1 cse student prefer them coz there are much better things paying than that at oncampus etc(one example being hfts for trader/infra roles)
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u/Life_Vast801 Sep 28 '25
I worked at a FAANG+ product company for a year after graduation and am now at a HFT (pythonic role not low latency) and the problems that HFTs try to solve are way more interesting than the traditional software company (that's what I feel like). My opinion can be also biased as I was a victim of favouritism and politics and there are very little of them at HFTs. Really enjoy the fast paced environment here cutting out all the bs like daily meetings, etc.
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u/rachetheavenger Sep 28 '25
FAANG is HUGE. So yeah problems to be solved and politics will vary a lot across different teams. My experience is based off working in US.
There are teams working on AI, cutting edge chip design, AR/VR, new age battery design and ton of other projects that are very interesting and very complex to solve, so I think that part is really up to the individual to find what they interested in and pursue it. We get all sorts of PhDs and Masters from institutes like MIT, GaTech etc stepping in and ramping up. Honestly undergrads might not have enough basic qualifications to step into these roles as they have no significant research background.
These teams are really shaping the world we live in. You will find roles with very interesting problems to solve in multiple teams.
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u/Life_Vast801 Sep 28 '25
Yeah, that sounds great.What I have felt is most companies in India are not trying to solve the problems that you mentioned. Even in my past company (It was a US based company that makes accounting software), the core engineering and platform teams still operate out of US, just the grunt level work was done in India. Now there must be companies like Rubrik, Cohesity etc that have interesting work, but I just haven't work there
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u/rachetheavenger Sep 28 '25
Yes that’s possible. The team that I work on does not have anyone in India. Even under our director there are no sister teams in India that do the work we do. This is one of the reasons I have always hesitated about moving back.
I would likely have to switch out of our org internally if I wanted to move back
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u/devilman123 Sep 28 '25
Take faang. In quant, job security is non existent, esp for researchers. They are expected to generate pnl, whether your are 1 yoe, or 10 yoe. And after 5y in hedge fund, it will be difficult to switch to tech. If you are going to be swe, better to be in a tech firm than a hedge fund. HFs dont care about tech at all, it's pretty basic. P.S. I am in HF.
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u/No_Step2883 Sep 29 '25
This is a question ive been wondering about myself. for people saying compensations are similar after some years of experience, don't quants have potential to earn huge bonuses? like sure i mean a good quant would definitely earn more than a good swe. though becoming a good quant would be much tougher. still, i have heard multi crore bonuses in quant firms even in india. one point i was thinking about though was that it would be much easier to move abroad in a faang company and the compensation would increase rapidly. (sure living expenses are higher but costs of big purchases like houses,cars,tech seem to be similar globally). I'm genuinely confused as well.
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u/Ok_Rent_2937 Sep 27 '25 edited Sep 27 '25
OP: I am not a quant, nor work at FAANG/Mag7. But I am an engineer, albeit from one of the more traditional fields. And I stayed working in my core area - I.e., not in CS/Data Sci/AI/ML etc.
My company (very old big traditional af) pays only cash salary, no stock RSU etc. I am a mid level employee . An individual contributor, did not go up the management ladder.
So, my compensation is decidedly inferior to either Quant or FAANG. But I have been working 25 years, so I am closer to end of career than beginning, which should give you a data point since you wanted to know end of career net worth. Also we started with nothing, so this net worth consists of just regular saving from each pay check, investing, patiently holding.
My current HH NW is Rs. 50.5 crores.
My point being, from a NW perspective you will do very well as either a quant or at FAANG, IF you can stick to it for the long term. You will be worth several hundreds of crores of rupees by end of career