All right I finally got a job after more than a year of non-stop reading and more than 3 months of job-hunting... It’s a trader’s trainee (junior trader or trader’s assistant, not sure what’s the correct name) role in a small start-up hedge fund. I was looking for a quant job but always wanted to be closer to the business side, so I’m very excited that this opportunity came along…

The pay is lower then for most of the entry level quant jobs (slightly less than $70K) but I really don’t care about that (after being a PhD student for 5 years even that kind of money seems like a lot to me), moreover those guys who run this place are very experienced traders and try to teach me something every time they have a minute. Also they promise to give me some money to trade by the end of this year. So if everything works out as planned, I think it doesn’t get any better

 Anyway, I know there’re quite a few traders on this forum, so I wanted to ask you guys and everybody else who can give me a useful advice:

1)  can somebody describe me some possible career paths available to me? In a sense let’s say I worked here for several years. How hard will it be for me to find another job in case I loose this one for some reason (it’s always a possibility...). What kind of jobs I will be able to apply to?

2) I’ll probably forget all this stoch. calc, PDEs, SDEs and C++ stuff I was learning for quite awhile. How important is it to continue brushing up on it? I know it’s all used in exotic derivatives trading, but where else?... we seem not use it at all and still get a decent return in our place? How important to be good in C++ if I want to remain in trading?  I learnt it on my own, but since I’ve never programmed for industrial projects and still don’t I won’t be able to compete with those people who use it on an everyday basis if I'm applying for the jobs requiring it

3) If somebody could give me some leads as to what is out there in trading: books, links, etc. I’ll greatly appreciate that

My e-mail is   drewsnpgmailcom

1. You're starting out. You can appply for anything. Heck, you could apply to jobs starting with Asset Management and end with xotic options trading.

2. Use it. Use it every day. Why do you think I hang out on NP? Because here I can answer peoples questions and at the same time repeat my own knowledge. When was the last time I bootstrapped a swap curve by hand or calculated implied correlation for swaptions? Years ago, but thanks to this, the question comes up every now and then and so I get to review my own understanding of things.
Maintaining some exposure to programming is easy. There are all sorts of task in day-to-day trading operations that need automation. You'll be doing some programming, I can guarantee you.

3. Truth is... there aren't any good books about trading. There are some "okay" ones that might shed light on a particular aspect of trading (such as options trading or bonds trading). What Tony pointed out (Market Wizards) gives some insight into how other traders operate. I buy almost every finance related book that comes out and I have to say, there isn't much in my library that I could really recommend for trading per se. Learning by doing is going to get you farther than any book you read.

Let me put it this way: For a beginner, almost everything would be interesting. What you do need to realize is that Mr. Van Tharp cannot trade. Else he would be making money trading and not flogging seminars, books and newsletters.

Those who can't trade, teach.
Those who can't teach, regulate.

(that's one of my favorite quips)

The books worthwhile reading to a trader concern themselves with various techniques and calculations required for trading. No book can really teach you anything with regard to learning how to do a job properly. If you want to become a chemical scientist, it helps greatly to understand principles of chemistry, but no book will be able to instill the curiosity and inquiring nature characteristic of good scientists.
If you want to be a painter, it helps to understand color theory and the different techniques for applying paint to canvas, but no book will get you to develop the creativity and the "feel" for the brush.

Thanks for your insights, guys. In trading everything is new to me. I work in this hedge fund for about 6 weeks, and it seems to me I picked up already the majority of techniques we use for futures trading (I’ll probably try to paper trade just to see how well I understand those techniques). I don’t have time to keep refreshing/improving my math (at least not now), but will definitely try to start doing it sometimes in the future...

Anyway, if anybody could think of any other useful books on trading or provide some other useful info, I’ll be very interested.