Quants in banks are generally not working high-frequency trading which this website seems to focus on, and which generally requires very limited modelling. Therefore HFT is often the province of IT teams, though quants may have some input. The role of quants tends to involve hedging, calibrating models, and sensitivities -- <a href="http://www.risk.net/type/technical-paper" rel="nofollow">http://www.risk.net/type/technical-paper</a><p>As a rule of thumb: it is quanty iff the word convex is employed. Interestingly, this can be abused by the uninitiated -- "Have you considered the convexity of the underlying?" etc. -- to pretend to a deeper, quantier knowledge than that possessed.<p>Depending on the asset class there are more specific books but "Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives" by Hull is a good starting point.