Newly Minted Quants are Turning from Wall Street to Tech Companies

More graduates are taking their quant skills into other sectors. Which means those focused on Wall Street are going to be the object of many a firm's desire.

Apparently, the job's not all it's cracked up to be - at least according to a new crop of math whizzes graduating from New York universities. The lure of entrepreneurship and the gloom hanging over Wall Street nowadays is nudging many of them to explore careers in the city's high-technology sector, instead of taking the path into banking they'd have followed just a few years ago.

In fact, schools like Columbia and New York University are encouraging them. Says Crain's New York Business: "They see helping their students explore careers away from the Street as a way to help diversify New York City's economy."

That adds to the notion that the mathematically savvy have a growing range of options to choose from as they begin their careers. More companies in more industries are seeking to leverage data of all kinds to their advantage, which makes erstwhile quants attractive to more employers. And that's happening at a time when they're becoming even more important to trading desks.