[hapaboii]

Sorry, my education chart is a bit misleading because it leaves out regular undergrads.

Undergrads from top schools, typically quant oriented majors(math, stats, finance, accounting, physics, engineering, CS, etc), will have opportunities to join sales & trading analyst programs with big banks. They typically do the recruiting senior year with the on campus career center, etc. Depending on how "quant" they are, personality, interests, and bank needs, will determine which desk they end up on. I think some firms offer rotational programs so you get to try out a lot of products before settling in. Others you might just be placed in corp bond sales or something, and that's it. These programs will effectively be assistant trading/sales roles that will lead up to full-fledged trading/sales roles - note: you won't be prop trading, you'll be responsible for customer flow, market making, pricing, structuring, etc. I don't know if it's possible to get on a bank prop desk right out of school as an undergrad. Undergrads will also have opportunities to join well-regarded prop firms right out of school, Geneva Trading, Schneider, Marex, FNYS, DE Shaw, etc.

The Street is aggressively hiring quants because the general trend is toward algorithmic executions. So to stay competitive, all the firms need to build up their program trading desks, algorithms offered, TCA and OMS software. Also, quants are in demand for prop desks because high-frequency strategies are becoming more popular. Stat arb, pseudo-market making, mean reversion, etc. Lots of statistical analysis, data mining, and implementation of models by very talented programmers is necessary to create these black boxes. Is this trend going to continue and will we see trading become more and more automated? Probably, but when everyone starts chasing the same edge it usually disappears, already you have box wars going on, but I think it'll become a game of who can adapt their models best.

Just take a look at efinancialcareers.com and you'll see how many firms are looking to hire quants and programmers.