gwern comments on Economy gossip open thread - Less Wrong

22 Post author: John_Maxwell_IV 28 October 2012 04:10AM

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Comment author: gwern 28 October 2012 08:00:03PM 0 points [-]

But how are you going to write it without becoming an actuary? Or sell it to the insurance giants? (Wouldn't they rather buy their own in-house software, tuned to their idiosyncratic needs? This is probably what is happening with that requirement "programming skills"...)

Comment author: RomeoStevens 28 October 2012 09:24:55PM 0 points [-]

If it were easy there would already be kickass actuarial software. You might be right that one would need to become an actuary to do it. At least that is the normal path for this sort of thing.

Comment author: MileyCyrus 29 October 2012 02:33:09AM -1 points [-]

You're correct; most of the software is produced in-house.

Comment author: Cthulhoo 30 October 2012 08:51:42AM 1 point [-]

I do work for an external consultant firm / software house, and, to be honest a lot of the software is outsourced (which is good, because I like my job as it is). By now, I've got quite a bit of experience in working with one of those insurance giants, and the biggest problem is really the usual "political" one of getting to the right hooks. There is a lot of room for advanced economical models and the related software, and now probably the best choice is to work as a consultant. My suggestion is to look for medium size firms, since the biggest one (e.g Accenture, Ernst&Young) tend to have lower career opportunities, and usually you have to do a lot of boring work as a novice before having the chance to do something more interesting.