2019 new year resolution review
1. Change my job to a more promising field/industry
My original plan was switching to buy-side quantitative researcher or data scientist role as my next career step, say Citadel, Two Sigma and DE Shaw. To achieve that, I kicked off the study plan during late 2017, including MIT online course, Qishi buy-side workshop and systematic reading/studying on data science and machine learning. However, a few lessons I learned gave me direct feedback that (1) I am not solid enough and (2) I don’t have competitive advantages in this field among PhDs and top talents.
Also, I have spent a significant amount of time thinking about life goals along with my personality. The final conclusion lies in data science + fintech for short-term career goal and startup/innovative work in the long term.
Being through many interviews internally/externally, I found a data product specialist role in JP Morgan this may, which is a (1) front-office role, (2) startup culture, (3) fintech product driven with big data/AI technique. It is a good combination of my competitive edge and career target. My parallel careers (VC + Quantitative Finance) finally converge into one common path (Fintech + data science + startup driven).
2. Kickoff the startup project
I have been incubating the jewelry startup ideas since Sep. 2018, also added another quantum computing into the pipeline in late 2019.
In the meantime, I have been actively recruiting the team members, testing MVPs and collect user feedback. There are tons of experience/knowledge I have learned when actually DOING/IMPLEMENTING the startup project. -> So, keep that in mind: “知行合一” | ” Mind and Hand “
The project details can be found from:
About life
- Keep running (500km+), twice a week, every Wed and weekend.
- Stick to market recap habit (regularly review and write market view articles) | 2019 Recap and 2020 Outlook
- Healthier life habit, less sick this year. (Had a bad time during 2018 H2)
- Allocate my time more efficiently on things (1) I truly interested, (2) with slow but long-lasting impact
- Be very clear on things I love: 1) Running, 2) Football, 3) Chinese Calligraphy, 4) Farming, 5) Saxophone
- Be very focused and patient
About knowledge:
- Better Spark/Hadoop skills
- Get a taste of quantum computing in finance -> Will organize the quantum workshop in 2020
- Less proficient with Python OOP and market risk metrics
- Understand my knowledge gap of being a quantitative researcher in top tier hedge-fund
- Better product design experience, learned design thinking
- Dig out little a bit more on jewelry, 1) Appraisal, 2) Recommendation on Computer Vision
- Book reading: Book List
About career:
- Switch from quantitative research to product manager about AI ML on payment transaction field
- Invest significant amount of time writing the business plan/doing market research on startup projects.
- Good news from VC, great progress so far. New funding is coming.
- Not many highlights on JPM job, slow progress on product development. Luckily, received a good rating in the end.
- 参加春晖杯：
2020 new year resolution
- [Career] H1: Further develop my startup, test different MVPs
- Jewelry: Develop more business connections and partnerships. Three potential directions.
- Quantum Computing: Kickoff the workshop idea
- Altron: (1) Funding application, (2) Mouse drug test, (3) Innovation competition.
- [Career] H2: Generate some revenue for my startup
- [Life] Human flag 把身体练好，以能够做人体旗帜为验收标准。
