QD
Qudian Inc.
stock NYSE

Definitely expanding in the quantitative trading sector, and there will always be a demand for QR & QD, I've seen a lot more FPGA postings also. I don't see the growth of the quant industry slowing down anytime soon

this depends on which company. small prop shop/hedge fund can be more brutal in terms of performance based cutting - because they don't have that much buffer in terms of pay out economics/expenditure. These firms are more sensitive to team-based cutting - under performing strategy team from PM to QR/QD can be removed (note the word 'under performing' not 'badly performing'). But still they could try to recycle QR/QD to another better performing team if that team's PnL allows more hires. you will get similar cut rate from multi manager hedge funds where pod performance metric is strict. I personally have not seen many people voluntarily quitting QR job to go to another sector.

If you do TDOE then you will be a TDOE forever. It doesn't translate into QD or QR.