A day in the life of ... A Credit Analyst

Credit analysts track various sovereign, quasi-sovereign or corporate credits (i.e. companies). They model the names they track along various accounting metrics to determine how the companies are currently performing, and how they might perform under different market conditions. They advise portfolio managers on what credits to buy and which ones to sell and when. Good credit analysts are able to anticipate market moves before they happen and steer portfolios to tidy gains while avoiding losses. Credit analysts tend to be very busy during equity earnings season (yes, even though they work in the corporate bonds space), and with new or potential new issues.

This is what a typical Credit Analyst's day might look like:

0700: get to work, track major market news stories and overnight 
      developments

0800: participate in the morning meeting with all other analysts 
      and portfolio managers present recent happenings in your 
      sectors, names you cover, market news items of interest. 
      discuss any relevant holdings in portfolios, summarize key 
      ideas for either increasing or decreasing exposure in 
      particular companies

0900: if on the sell side confer with other analysts that cover 
till  the same name or attend scheduled meetings or conference 
1100  calls with management from companies you cover. ask 
      pertinent questions to firm up your investment theses

      if on the buy side, talk to sell side analysts that cover 
      the same name or credit, ask for trade ideas either in 
      terms of relative value or others, and form firm 
      recommendations

1100: read research on companies, track market events to 
till  evaluate trade ideas factoring in portfolio holdings. keep 
1500  aware of new issuances from either companies you hold or 
      in sectors you cover. pay special attention to M&A     
      activity as well.

1500: pitch your trade and holdings ideas to portfolio managers. 
till  clarify views on your credits etc. it usually helps to put 
1600  out a note on names you cover daily before leaving work 
      with major news items and impending news stories. for new 
      issues, might want to advise portfolio manager on 
      allocations to put in for.

1600: build models for the companies you cover, test them with 
till  various scenarios if working on regional credits, might 
1800  also want to model various fat-tail events to determine 
      how credits might behave

1800: work on daily commentary, send it out, head home
till
1830

A day in the life of ... A Corporate Development Specialist

A corporate development specialist is a new kind of role in many firms, typically those at the leading edge of technology. Such firms have clear (maybe _clearer_ would be a better way of stating this) needs to stay innovative, grow at a furious pace to keep shareholders happy, etc.

Effectively an employee in this role performs many functions including:

1. internal consulting on business processes, organizational structures etc
2. product portfolio rationalization
3. competitive intelligence, analysis, and competitive landscaping
4. M&A work including target company identification, due diligence, merger discussions and post-merger integration
5. supporting individual projects or groups of projects with business analysis etc

As with good Business Analysts that are excellent generalists in service oriented businesses, good corporate development specialists tend to have strong general and particular specialized skill-sets (e.g. they may come from a strong management consulting background) that makes them particularly valuable to the company.

Since these professionals tend to have very widely varying sets of responsibilities as well as projects they may be involved in at any given time, it is rather difficult to indicate what a "typical" day might look like for people in this role. Hence we do not provide any additional details for this particular position.

People in this role tend to have strong general skills in finance, accounting, and consulting, with at least some level of technical ability to be able to grasp technical details quickly. The best people in these kinds of roles also have an innate ability to be able to operate comfortably at both the macro and the micro levels in the organization, and can be counted on to build and grow project teams, lead them, recruit leaders to take their place, effectively transition leadership and move on to other projects where the company needs them more.

People are usually very carefully selected for these roles, and typically a few years of experience is a pre-requisite for anyone to be successful. In some firms these people are called Program Managers, though strictly speaking that is a somewhat different role.

A day in the life of ... A Trader

"Climbing isn't about conquering the rock. It is about conquering yourself." -- Jim Collins
The same can be said of Trading.

All most people know of trader's jobs is what they see in the news media and movies. Obscene amounts of money in compensation, scams, scandals, a lavish lifestyle, and then ruin in one form or another. From this a trader's life appears rather glamorous. Sadly, in reality, nothing could be farther from the truth.

The job of a trader is a very demanding one. It involves tracking the market closely for the asset class you trade, looking at various instruments within the context of the market, and taking positions either long (buy) or short (sell) in them. Once in a trade, the trader tracks the P&L of the position, cuts the losers, and rides the winners, and makes a tidy sum (for his firm) at the end of the day... or so the theory goes. All this of course, is much easier said than actually done, as any trader will tell you. This also explains why there are so many traders, and so few consistently successful ones.

Traders are of different types: Sell-side traders trade for investment banks. They make markets, executing orders for their buy-side clients, meet with their clients every once in a while, and sometimes take active positions to make the tidy P&L we spoke so fondly of in the previous paragraph.

Buy-side traders tend to execute trades sometimes at portfolio manager direction, or at other times, trade their own book.

Trades may last anywhere from a few milliseconds all the way to days and weeks depending on the reasoning and methodology behind how they are executed. The ideas behind trades may be fundamental (derived from sound economic principles), technical (based on charts), quantitative (based on numerical methods and data), or systematic (based on a model).

A typical traders day might look something like this:

0630: show up at work, digest all major news stories, study your 
till  book, prepare for the day. mark all open positions, look 
0730  at which ones are approaching take profit or stop-loss 
      levels, prepare to trade these 

0730: morning meeting with other traders in the sector to 
till  discuss ideas (whether this meeting exists is strictly 
0800  firm dependent)

0830: look at trade ideas, look for opportunities, look at the 
till  model, the market, events, study your book, enter and exit 
1800* positions. if buy side trader, can leave overnight orders 
      with sell-side traders before leaving for the day.
  
      if sell-side trader, might have one or more client 
      meetings during the day, in which case someone else from 
      the desk will cover for him.

      traders might run sophisticated models during this period 
      as well. some firms have fully automated trading systems 
      that are built and operated by teams of ex-engineers
      and code-gurus.

1830: if buy-side trader, leave boss a note on all overnight 
      orders. all traders note their day's P&L.
      go home, but be aware of market events

* different markets close at different times. also, part of the day might be spent chasing the clearing of earlier trades with the help of middle- and back- office personnel.

A day in the life of ... A Pre-Sales Consultant

The pre-sales consultant position is known by different names in different firms. In some, the corporate development roles tackle this aspect of the business as well, while in others they might split this role based on each functional component into a separate position. In a few firms, given this is a role with a lot of responsibility, they may just have the lead architect perform this role, or create the role of a "lead consulting architect" that performs both the lead architect role and the pre-sales consultant or corporate development function (though this latter role also involves doing a quite a bit of internal consulting and some amount of M&A work - both sourcing potential acquisition targets and once these have been identified and targeted, helping do due diligence on the deal, bringing the deal to fruition, and finally also helping with post-merger integration and company product portfolio rationalization).

In my experience, a pre-sales consultant does the following things: 
a. visits customers and prospective customers along with product managers and presents products, product ideas, company innovations and leading edge thinking to them, b. responds to RFPs, RFQs and RFIs in consultation with architects and systems engineers, c. performs bid defenses, d. conducts sales training for various products, e. staffs booths in trade shows and conferences, f. presents company positions in conferences etc

A typical pre-sales consultant's day might look something like this:

0700: get to work, look through email

0730: work on the assigned sections of the currently "hot" RFP 
till  to get it done on time. identify questions or sections 
1100  that require input from other Subject Matter Experts 
      (SMEs), reach out to them to get these answered

1100: meet with product managers and architects and learn of 
till  potential new product pitches to be made to clients, 
1300  review presentation ideas and the deck, potentially also 
      creating some slides yourself

1300: prepare for a bid-defense on another RFP tomorrow at a 
till  client site, conferring with other SMEs as needed. refine 
1500  story, rehearse to make the pitch perfect

1500: attend the daily review of RFP section updates with the 
till  rest of the team, take away a log of key changes to be 
1700  implemented

1700: look forward. mine RFP responses to extract common 
till  sections or "boiler plate" material that can be used in 
1830  other RFPs. work with product managers and lead architects 
      on competitive landscaping

1930: typically RFP deadlines are very tight, and people work 
till  over-time trying to get all this done on time.
...

A day in the life of ... A Systems Engineer

Systems Engineers (SEs) are to technology, technical problems and product design as Business 
Analysts are to the business aspects of an organization. SE roles vary across companies and
sometimes even within the same company and they are of many different types e.g. SEs in my
previous firm used to be of three types: 

Tier-1 SEs: these focus on writing documents that spec out a product release into several 
component features. Sometimes they also help product managers and lead architects plan the
release roadmap for a product.

Tier-3 SEs: these SEs work on documenting the design level details of particular features.
This work requires a lot more detailed, in-depth knowledge of underlying protocols, product
components, architecture etc. These SEs work more closely with architects and developers
as their work product more fully fleshes out the design details of an architecture and 
provides a document that developers can use as a basis to scope out and actually build into
the product release.

Tier-2 SEs: these are less frequently found in organizations, because sometimes these roles
are also fulfilled by tier-3 SEs. When they do exist in organizations, they function in 
roles that document the network level specifications or requirements that tie designs of 
several tier-3 SE specified features so that overall system design and architecture is 
consistent and stable, particularly for large systems that need to scale to several million
subscribers, have very high availability (e.g. 99.999%) requirements, are mission-critical, 
or have very high performance or thruput requirements.

In what follows, we look at the typical day in the life of a tier-3 SE: 

0730: get to work, read through email. keep track of release 
      plan, any impending deadlines, change to project schedules 
      etc

0800: prepare for morning meeting, go through notes, track 
      current progress on features being worked, make lists of 
      work done, work to do, blocking issues etc

0830: attend morning meeting with manager, architecture team and 
till  developers. discuss issues that impact feature or 
1030  surrounding features. identify experts you can tap to 
      complete feature definition. try to help other SEs, 
      developers and architects with open issues

1030: work on feature, read up protocol specifications, network 
till  details, architecture documents etc
1400

1400: attend tier-1 or tier-3 document reviews. these may be 
till  reviews of your own documents act as scribe capturing 
1600  meeting minutes and all defects raised. track owners and 
      level of criticality to product and release.

1600: meet with various SMEs to clear any gating issues to keep 
till  your design document on till  track. validate design ideas 
1800  with developers to ensure they are in scope, and designed
      keeping in mind both feasibility and project timelines.

1830: log off and go home

2100: work with teams in other centers (if working in a global 
till  organization) to help them meet their deadlines and ensure 
2300  timely product delivery.

A day in the life of ... A Business Analyst

Business Analysts or BAs as they are typically called, come in various flavors, and their duties vary accordingly. Some BAs code quite a bit, while others interface mostly with internal clients on applications (e.g. acting as internal consultants on critical projects), gather requirements in support of new systems, processes or tools, while yet others mine organizational structures to find ways to make the business more efficient. The best BAs tend to be excellent generalists at the very top of their game.

Depending on their roles and how they conduct themselves relative to business stakeholders, BAs may be either loved or hated in the organization. Of course a lot also depends on the organization's culture and management's attitude towards internal consultants. In a good company, people in these roles have the ear of senior management and tend to have access to the fast-track in terms of promotions, career growth etc. And of course, if the company has
a stellar reputation and is one of the leaders in its field, then these BAs tend to have excellent exit options in other firms of repute, landing there in director level positions. Usually though, these positions go to managers of BA teams, not individual contributors.

More often than not though, company culture doesn't give BAs the importance they deserve, so many of these people either leave or move towards more specialized functions where they get more attention and better compensation. 


A typical BA's day might go something like this: 

0730: show up at work and catch up on email. hopefully no crises
      surfaced from the other side of the world while the US was 
      sleeping

0800: prepare for the morning meeting, gathering notes on 
      progress made since yesterday with clear notes on tasks 
      accomplished, those pending, blocking issues etc

0830: attend a meeting hosted by project management with boss 
      and rest of team present give readout, take feedback

0900  launch application (if that's what you're working on)
till  write application documentation
1500: identify weak spots or issues, determine contacts or 
      Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to fill these in, set up 
      appointments

1500  meet with various contacts within the company to gather 
till  more information add more details to your specification
1800: check email to track any new urgent issues
      conduct training sessions as needed with users or your team

1830: log off and go home.

2130  get on the phone with staff in other time-zones and monitor
till  progress or provide support as needed (usually, if in the 
2330: US, this is staff in "low cost centers")