Can working in alt data help me exit to L/S investing?

I have been recruited as part of an ER team but working on data insights/statistics to provide to the ER team while also doing some traditional ER/financial modelling work myself, so it's kind of a combination of traditional ER and alt data. Hedge Funds are increasingly using alt data to fill in gaps in their models and projections, however at most MM L/S funds there is a separate data/market intelligence department. My long-standing interest has always been to become a L/S investor. I only took this role because I was desperate given the current status of the job market and it is at a very well known firm. Would you say that the alt data part of the job makes it relatively harder for me to move to an investment team later or is it an advantage because it means that I have additional skills that might complement a pod's investment strategy?

 

Stop making posts about these things. HF recruiting isn’t clear cut and different PMs will value different things.

if you’re working in ER, doing fundamental modelling/analysis, then yes it’s possible. Will they prefer people that have done IB? Possibly.

 

Yes the path would be working at alt data provider -> data scientist/engineer at pod -> transition to analyst at pod as someone else takes over data duties. It’s not easy or guaranteed but I’ve seen multiple people do it over multi-year timelines

 
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