In this insightful episode, I sit down with Edson Bope, a master’s student from Zimbabwe studying Financial Engineering in Pennsylvania, who shares his journey navigating the competitive U.S. job market in search of quantitative finance roles.

Edson opens up about the unique challenges international students face, from visa constraints to cultural differences in networking. He talks about his experience attending quant conferences, participating in hackathons, and leveraging LinkedIn cold outreach to build real connections with professionals at hedge funds, banks, and prop trading firms.

We dive into:

• 💬 How to turn an informational interview into a genuine relationship

• 📊 The importance of technical prep, including case studies, coding tests, and probability brainteasers

• 💼 Why many firms prefer candidates who can “hit the ground running” and how international students can bridge that expectation gap

Edson also reflects on the mental resilience required during long job hunts and shares tips that worked: from making a networking spreadsheet to sending value-driven follow-ups.

Whether you’re an international student or just someone looking to break into quant, this episode is packed with practical advice, real-life stories, and a reminder that persistence pays off—even across borders.

Zuber Seth and I discussed his firm (Orchid) out of his London office. The discussion starts with Zuber's background, his foray into the hedge fund world, barista coffee, a chance accouter, lots of networking, a Math degree, London, #Qatar, a prince, #seedfunding and ultimately the creation of this AI firm aimed at #HedgeFunds to create an Autonomous analyst in order to free their time in generating Alpha.

As the market is heading down, we bring in Aidan Oster who is top ranked amongst 500+ entrants in the 2025 United States Investing Championship to give us his views on the stock market. https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidan-oster/

Professor Salas comes back to the podcast to provide an update on the "Trump" Tariffs. Salas is the author of peer reviewed research on Tariffs. The discussion starts with the previous Trump Tariffs on China, then the impending Tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada are addressed in a lively discussion.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-z-08bb5b5a/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/lehigh-master-in-financial-engineering/

Discussion with Professor Salas on the impending "Trump" Tariffs. Salas is the author of peer reviewed research on Tariffs. The discussion starts with the previous Trump Tariffs on China, then the impending Tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada are addressed in a lively discussion.

Professor Zoro speaks with the CEO of Safebooks AI about accounting and AI.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-z-08bb5b5a/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/lehigh-master-in-financial-engineering/

Safebooks.ai is the first AI-powered financial data governance platform built for finance teams who demand accuracy, trust, and speed. It seamlessly integrates with all systems in the Office of the CFO such as ERPs, CRMs, billing systems, banks, AP systems, payroll, and more, unifying data from these sources into a centralized financial data warehouse.

By ensuring 100% financial data coverage without sampling, Safebooks delivers real-time insights, automated controls and cross systems reconciliations, and fraud detection to help organizations eliminate errors, accelerate month end close, and stay audit ready.

With seamless integration and complete visibility, Safebooks empowers finance teams to reduce manual workloads, ensure compliance, and make confident, data-driven decisions.

Professor zoro’s guests discussed the project they have been working on since 2024: Corporate Material Event Sequences with LLMs3 and associated sentiment scores (Historical and Real-Time with Forecasts).

https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-z-08bb5b5a/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/lehigh-master-in-financial-engineering/

Lehigh MFEs shared their experience and views on LLMs and Deepseek with Professor Zoro who manages Lehigh MFE program: https://business.lehigh.edu/academics/graduate/masters-programs/ms-financial-engineering

Fathmat Bakayoko is a MFE, working on extracting insights from SEC 8-K filings using language models and exploring crypto compliance. www.linkedin.com/in/fathmat-samira-bakayoko-30715024a."

Nicholas Wagner is a MFE co-founded lab automation company Opentrons Labworks and works on blending quantitative finance with Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLMs). He sees these emerging technologies as catalysts for data-driven breakthroughs in capital markets.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-wagner-b7b743229/

Hariom Tastat is an MFE and Experienced quant and leader with expertise in the areas of quantitative research, financial AI/machine learning and derivative pricing.

Co-author of the book “Machine Learning and Data Science Blueprints for Finance”.

Website: https://htatsat.com/

3 Lehigh MFEs shared their experience and views on LLMs and Deepseek with Professor Zoro who manages Lehigh MFE program: https://business.lehigh.edu/academics/graduate/masters-programs/ms-financial-engineering

Fathmat Bakayoko is a MFE, working on extracting insights from SEC 8-K filings using language models and exploring crypto compliance. www.linkedin.com/in/fathmat-samira-bakayoko-30715024a."

Nicholas Wagner co-founded lab automation company Opentrons Labworks and works on blending quantitative finance with Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLMs). He sees these emerging technologies as catalysts for data-driven breakthroughs in capital markets.

Rish Kumar works on innovative projects in finance and blockchain analytics. He analyzes and labels swap transactions to enrich data, builds algorithms to classify blockchain accounts. He maintains and optimizes Python-based systems to track top publicly traded companies in Pennsylvania and creates dynamic data visualizations

https://www.linkedin.com/in/riskumar/linkedin.com

Edris Loftpouri MFE /24 discusses his interest on the implementation of Bayesian Neural Networks (BNNs) for macroeconomic forecasting. He also touches on Castastrophe Modeling

https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-z-08bb5b5a/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/lehigh-master-in-financial-engineering/

This project develops a Bayesian Neural Network (BNN) for macroeconomic forecasting, using stochastic volatility and Bayesian shrinkage priors to manage complex, high-dimensional data. With layer-specific and neuron-specific activation functions, the model captures both long-term dependencies and short-term nonlinear dynamics. Offering adaptive uncertainty quantification and robust volatility handling, it’s ideal for risk analysis, economic policy, and quantitative finance applications.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/edris-lotfpouri/

The podcast welcomes Rob Navin, Founder of Real Time Risk Systems to discuss his new method of estimated a realized volatility based on P&L from a constant gamma position. This is a deep dive quant discussion on Option strategies. Estifanos Shekour, MFE also join the podcast and share his experience on designing option strategies.

Link to Discussion Article

https://optionstree.substack.com/p/gamma-capture-realized-volatility-9b5

https://www.linkedin.com/in/robnavin/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/estifanos-shekour/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-z-08bb5b5a/

Lehigh MFE Linkedin Page

https://www.linkedin.com/company/lehigh-master-in-financial-engineering