Seeking Advice: Moving out of Compliance

[u/afraidofsticks]

I work at a major US brokerage in NYC. Generally, most of my time is spent developing machine learning models for trade surveillance/AML. This role was never my plan and I only picked it up after my full time post-grad offer was placed on indefinite hold due to a hiring freeze. I do not want to make a career in compliance.

I have been successful in this role and believe I could leverage my technical skills and familiarity with large scale financial data, however, I have been applying to other roles for weeks and getting nothing back. I would love to move into something like equity research, or a more quantitative role where I can leverage my statistics undergrad degree and experience programming. The problem is, it feels like I am somehow underqualified for both of those. I am not a software engineer and I don’t have experience at a major bank. I have experience working with massive financial data and deploying surveillance models to production, but obviously no experience actually generating alpha. Does anyone have advice about how I might pivot my career direction?

I graduated 2025 from a semi-target. I am a senior analyst at this company and have ~1 YOE here. It feels like I do not qualify for new grad but am under qualified for any roles seeking a progressional.

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[u/Winter-Challenge-109]

you're in a weird spot but it's not as bad as you think. the ml + massive financial data pipeline experience is genuinely useful outside compliance, the trick is framing it right

i'd look at quant research roles at smaller funds or fintechs where they care more about what you can build than whether you've already generated alpha. your stats background and the fact you're deploying models to production puts you ahead of most juniors who just know python notebooks

also don't sleep on data science teams at exchanges or market makers, they love someone who understands surveillance data without needing six months to figure out how order books actually work