I started with C but ended up liking Python for its simplicity of putting together trading bots:!
This seems to be a common answer for quant trading researcher wannabes:
The Python implementation of my algorithms had poor performance. Implementing it in C++ gave me a speedup of up to 40. I still develop prototypes in Python but I turn them into C++ implementations later on with Python frontends.
Or for science research at places like CERN:
I was fascinated by subatomic particles and went for a Ph.D in particle physics which brought me to CERN and the ATLAS experiment in 2010.
Turns out all their data is stored in ROOT files. Those really only had a C++ interface at the time – a Python binding came out later but was much slower (100x).
Slowly I just became more interested in understanding software design and writing quality code in C++ than I cared about what the code actually did. So I took my Ph.D and 6 years of C++ and turned it into a software engineer position. Now on track for a software architect position.
NOTE I now post my TRADING ALERTS into my personal FACEBOOK ACCOUNT and TWITTER. Don't worry as I don't post stupid cat videos or what I eat!
