Tania Singhal

My career path started when I graduated from engineering college in India and joined my first company as a developer. Even though I was hired as a coder, they gave us classes on financial markets during my first week, teaching us about trading opportunities and how things work. The instructor talked about different movies and the 2008 financial crisis, and I realized this was an entire industry where both financial and tech professionals could contribute so much. I found it so interesting that I wanted to continue in the same field. As I progressed, I realized I wanted to study more about it, so I looked for good programs and decided the U.S. was the best place to go, given how much of the world economy is driven here. I chose UCLA because it seemed like the better fit overall, and the program was full of smart people from all over the world. Now I work with a consulting company where my role varies from client to client and project to project. I'm more risk-focused and tech-focused, so I evaluate whether clients have their IT infrastructure well-structured so traders can get the information they need. Sometimes we evaluate their policies or IT structure, sometimes we advise on improvements, and sometimes we do the implementation work or enhance their infrastructure. We also help clients automate things within their day-to-day operations so there's less repeated work and they can be more efficient and plan better for their risk. I'm still heavy on the development side, but as a consultant, I do other things too. I've been with my current company for 3 years, and before that I worked for a quant firm as an intern doing quant research development. I've really stayed in the same industry throughout my career, doing maybe a little bit different work, but it's all been within energy trading and risk management.