Project/career advice to get into quant dev in sports betting

[sifujames]

I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask, but I want to post this anyway.

I'm working towards getting a job as a quant developer with a sports trading firm, and given my circumstances, I am confident that I have enough time to go about building a portfolio to achieve this – I'm aiming for mid-2026. That said, I know how competitive this industry is, so if I'm overestimating what's possible, please bring me back down to earth!

Currently I'm at the very start of my tech career as a software dev apprentice at a large company in the UK, where I'll be almost exclusively using C# and .NET, but also SQL too. I write in the future tense because at this point in time, I've been exclusively working through the curriculum provided by apprenticeship provider (not employer), so haven't been exposed to any real projects yet, though this will change in the coming weeks.

The advantages I have are that, given the career I'm working towards, C# is highly in demand, unlike finance as far as I can tell. The disadvantages are that I likely will not have much work I can point to at my current job which will be relevant to quant dev, and (the big one) I don't have a degree. With this in mind, I want to create a stellar portfolio and do all that I can over this year and the next to become as employable as possible. For what it's worth, I'm working through the Probability and Statistics course on Math Academy, because not only do I want to learn advanced concepts, I also want to show that I do too – but I am open to other suggestions.

As for projects, I have in mind to do one accessing historical data from football fixtures, cleaning it, identifying trends and create models of how variables (such as weather/home vs away play/etc.) affect outcomes across markets, and backtest it to compare to bookmaker odds and see if value bets with a significant edge can be consistently identified.

If this all sounds very vague, nebulous, and like I'm not entirely sure of myself, there's a reason for that. I'm still piecing it together at the moment, but I'm enjoying this and I know that it's something I want to do.

I know that going from a software dev apprentice to quant dev – even if it is in sports betting – sounds insane, but I want to have a bloody good crack at it. Has anyone else been in a similar situation to me, built relevant projects to get them into the industry, or seen people who have? I'd like to hear from you if you have any comments or advice.

[Euler]

Why not just do it for yourself, rather than somebody else?

[sionascaig]

I know that going from a software dev apprentice to quant dev – even if it is in sports betting – sounds insane, but I want to have a bloody good crack at it. Has anyone else been in a similar situation to me, built relevant projects to get them into the industry, or seen people who have? I'd like to hear from you if you have any comments or advice.

When I used to recruit folk the three main items on my list were:

- technical competence
- experience and / or willingness to learn
- would they fit into the team

The last bit you mention, "building relevant projects", especially in your own time is huge & should certainly catch the eye of any potential employer & make you stand out.

There are not that many people with both a high (IT) technical competence and be a subject matter expert in the thing they are building solutions for. If you can be both then the future should be very bright.

Perhaps there are people on this forum that might have "projects" that could be mutually beneficial.

In the meantime network as much as you can (your post is a good start) & who knows what might come up )

[sifujames]

Why not just do it for yourself, rather than somebody else?

Good question, and I'd like to. But I think it makes sense for me to get a job in the industry if possible, rather than working in other areas of software engineering in my career while only doing my own things on the side – not least because I'll get more experience.

The way I see it, me building projects with the intention of getting hired involves my own learning and application of what I've learnt, and that correlates completely to the end goal of betting with my own money. I think it makes sense

[sifujames]

I know that going from a software dev apprentice to quant dev – even if it is in sports betting – sounds insane, but I want to have a bloody good crack at it. Has anyone else been in a similar situation to me, built relevant projects to get them into the industry, or seen people who have? I'd like to hear from you if you have any comments or advice.

When I used to recruit folk the three main items on my list were:

- technical competence
- experience and / or willingness to learn
- would they fit into the team

The last bit you mention, "building relevant projects", especially in your own time is huge & should certainly catch the eye of any potential employer & make you stand out.

There are not that many people with both a high (IT) technical competence and be a subject matter expert in the thing they are building solutions for. If you can be both then the future should be very bright.

Perhaps there are people on this forum that might have "projects" that could be mutually beneficial.

In the meantime network as much as you can (your post is a good start) & who knows what might come up )

That's very reassuring, thank you. I'm glad to know that I've not overvalued the importance of building a portfolio to show.

I'll do more research on finding similar projects, if people have made them publicly accessible, but, of course, it makes sense for them to not do that. Hey ho.

I've only just joined this site today, and I want to spend a lot of time going through the forum posts on here and definitely getting to know folks. I'd like to ask, when you onboarded people, what were the first few things you did to bring them up to speed with the needs of such a role? I know it varies person to person and the exact nature of the business, so it sounds like a pointless question, but I mean generally.

[megarain]

My son is sort of involved in this space and the interview process is now a v long train.

There are dozens of bland/no charisma nerds who have skills, but would be a pain to work with.

I would encourage you to work on people/social skills. With them, u will stand out and fairly easily land a role.

Lots companies are looking for sports quants, if your tech skills are any good.

[sifujames]

My son is sort of involved in this space and the interview process is now a v long train.

There are dozens of bland/no charisma nerds who have skills, but would be a pain to work with.

I would encourage you to work on people/social skills. With them, u will stand out and fairly easily land a role.

Lots companies are looking for sports quants, if your tech skills are any good.

That doesn't surprise me lol. Even after only my brief time working in tech, I know exactly what you're referring to. Fortunately, I'm not such an introvert to such a point that it makes me hard to communicate or work with, but I can always improve. And I'm confident that, if I'm fortunate enough to land an interview when the time comes, the right people will see that

[Euler]

Why not just do it for yourself, rather than somebody else?

Good question, and I'd like to. But I think it makes sense for me to get a job in the industry if possible, rather than working in other areas of software engineering in my career while only doing my own things on the side – not least because I'll get more experience.

The way I see it, me building projects with the intention of getting hired involves my own learning and application of what I've learnt, and that correlates completely to the end goal of betting with my own money. I think it makes sense

If you work for others you will be pushed to do much, but only get a slither of the reward.

In this business if you work hard you can have it all yourself. You seem like you have a decent amount of talent.

I know lots of Bet Angel users that are earning really good money, but if I told them to do that for me while I paid them a standard salary they would no doubt tell me where to shove it. The rewards are high in this game.

[Fugazi]

My son is sort of involved in this space and the interview process is now a v long train.

There are dozens of bland/no charisma nerds who have skills, but would be a pain to work with.

I would encourage you to work on people/social skills. With them, u will stand out and fairly easily land a role.

Lots companies are looking for sports quants, if your tech skills are any good.

This. I have a mate works in IT support. Keeps getting promoted every single year because he can actually speak to people

[sifujames]

Why not just do it for yourself, rather than somebody else?

Good question, and I'd like to. But I think it makes sense for me to get a job in the industry if possible, rather than working in other areas of software engineering in my career while only doing my own things on the side – not least because I'll get more experience.

The way I see it, me building projects with the intention of getting hired involves my own learning and application of what I've learnt, and that correlates completely to the end goal of betting with my own money. I think it makes sense

If you work for others you will be pushed to do much, but only get a slither of the reward.

In this business if you work hard you can have it all yourself. You seem like you have a decent amount of talent.

I know lots of Bet Angel users that are earning really good money, but if I told them to do that for me while I paid them a standard salary they would no doubt tell me where to shove it. The rewards are high in this game.

Damn it really is lucrative isn't it, and that would be the next logical step for me for sure. I'll keep building my bankroll while keeping on with what I'm doing. I'm fortunate that since I'm an apprentice in my current role, I have a lot of time to build my own personal projects, and am encouraged to furthermore, so at least I'm getting paid for doing work which will translate to decent money in future. I've played enough poker to know the swings of playing under-rolled though, so right now studying and saving is my best bet, if you'll pardon the pun

[Anbell]

It isnt lucrative for everyone.

[Big Bad Barney]

Hello there,

For mine, as a general rule, it is most sensible to get paid to learn. Make mistakes on someone else's paypacket. Once you feel you've made all the mistakes in the book THEN go it yourself.

The reason being, this is now a fairly mature industry, you're not gonna break into it without making 100 mistakes. Mature industries are not forgiving on mistakes. A young 20 years ago industry....is different.

For mine 18 month time frame is optimistic..

I work as a C# dev (doing boring ass software, rather than quant or sports). If it's money you are after you will get paid more being a moderately competent developer with excellent people skills than vice versa. The people with the money frequently cannot tell the difference between a good dev and a bad one because, lets face it....it's really difficult to determine.

I don't have any advice on getting the sports related area as I haven't been there...so dunno, maybe try ring ya local bookie I turned an interview at a bookie down to get my current boring ass job. Bad move...I think Cause now I cant speak with authority...... Some bookies seem to have staff churn though....

[wearthefoxhat]

I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask, but I want to post this anyway.

I'm working towards getting a job as a quant developer with a sports trading firm, and given my circumstances, I am confident that I have enough time to go about building a portfolio to achieve this – I'm aiming for mid-2026. That said, I know how competitive this industry is, so if I'm overestimating what's possible, please bring me back down to earth!

Currently I'm at the very start of my tech career as a software dev apprentice at a large company in the UK, where I'll be almost exclusively using C# and .NET, but also SQL too. I write in the future tense because at this point in time, I've been exclusively working through the curriculum provided by apprenticeship provider (not employer), so haven't been exposed to any real projects yet, though this will change in the coming weeks.

The advantages I have are that, given the career I'm working towards, C# is highly in demand, unlike finance as far as I can tell. The disadvantages are that I likely will not have much work I can point to at my current job which will be relevant to quant dev, and (the big one) I don't have a degree. With this in mind, I want to create a stellar portfolio and do all that I can over this year and the next to become as employable as possible. For what it's worth, I'm working through the Probability and Statistics course on Math Academy, because not only do I want to learn advanced concepts, I also want to show that I do too – but I am open to other suggestions.

As for projects, I have in mind to do one accessing historical data from football fixtures, cleaning it, identifying trends and create models of how variables (such as weather/home vs away play/etc.) affect outcomes across markets, and backtest it to compare to bookmaker odds and see if value bets with a significant edge can be consistently identified.

If this all sounds very vague, nebulous, and like I'm not entirely sure of myself, there's a reason for that. I'm still piecing it together at the moment, but I'm enjoying this and I know that it's something I want to do.

I know that going from a software dev apprentice to quant dev – even if it is in sports betting – sounds insane, but I want to have a bloody good crack at it. Has anyone else been in a similar situation to me, built relevant projects to get them into the industry, or seen people who have? I'd like to hear from you if you have any comments or advice.

These guys are well established and could be a good fit.

https://starlizard.com/join-our-team/

Reckon if you had some sort of working model that can be checked historically (not back-fitted), it might peak their interest if you don't have degree.

As said, if you produce a working sports model that can take into account certain information not easily found in the public domain, and structure it into implied probability v current market probability and show a profit, then, with good staking management and discipline, your profit could compound quickly to set up on your own.

Be careful of the "black market" bookies as they have tendency to not pay out if you win, worse still, refuse any withdrawal before disappearing from the face of the earth with your original deposit!

[Big Bad Barney]

Cool...guess you'd have to be better at it than the 7pm news.
https://starlizard.com/jobs/sports-meteorologist/

[Kai]

Think you would initially learn much faster in a team environment than working alone in a closed feedback loop.

But yes, like others have said sharing the profit is not as easy or rewarding as sharing workloads etc.