What Does a Quantitative Programmer Do?

A quantitative programmer is a specific kind of computer programmer that works with numbers and statistical or other types of quantitative modeling. Within the general field of programming and development, these individuals are referred to as quantitative programmers when they engage in working with statistical or mathematical models. One of the industries needing quantitative programmers is the financial industry, where firms hire these professionals to develop strategies for trading activities that are based on quantitative data and its various uses in modern technology.

In a very general sense, some firms may describe the duties of a quantitative programmer as maintaining and developing systems, or improving existing products. Other companies may hire quantitative programmer professionals to actually build systems, for example, for trading or global financial activity. Quantitative programmers are often described as being engaged in analytics, where high-level mathematics skills are most often necessary.

In addition to building and maintaining systems, a quantitative programmer might also spend time testing these systems. Tasks like cross validation may be part of a quantitative programmer’s job description. This type of professional might also work on specific goals like machine learning for existing technology systems using a large amount quantitative data.

Quantitative programmer jobs involve the use of many different kinds of software products. One of the most popular ones for these types of developers is the C suite of products. This includes the C, C sharp, and C++ programming languages. These languages are useful for all kinds of statistical data models.

Firms that are looking for a quantitative programmer are often seeking to accomplish specific goals. For example, many quantitative programmers are hired to work on applications for high frequency trading, where businesses with capital allow computer models to allocate that capital for profitable trading ventures. This type of activity relies heavily on the original programming of the high frequency trading tool, and that’s where quantitative programmers who are skilled at developing these systems can be extremely valuable to a company.

More details on quantitative programmer jobs may come from the human resources departments that put together descriptions of open positions for these kinds of roles. An experienced programmer should evaluate the points of a particular job to see if the desired skills match his or her specializations in finance, public administration, or other quantitative or statistical types of products. Industry-specific skills or knowledge are often part of a quantitative programming role.