4 ms·

In my experience, banks need a lot more than competitive job postings to be places where talented developers want to go. Obviously YMMV, but it's red-tape hell,

by latch 15y ago

In my experience, banks need a lot more than competitive job postings to be places where talented developers want to go. Obviously YMMV, but it's red-tape hell, technologically dated, management heavy, non-creative, and a real daily grind. If it's the kind of job you want, you are much better off working for the Government. This is exactly what working for a bank IS NOT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

igorgue 15y ago
I couldn't agree more, I don't really share the - what I think is - meaningless view of the world that banks have. There are ways to make money and helping people be awesome at the same time.
ig1 15y ago
Finance is pretty much like any sector, there's a huge variety between firms and even between individual teams within firms. There are lots of areas of finance where technology is what provides the competitive edge and they tend to be much more agile and use recent technologies, but there are also lots of areas where the code that was written 20 years ago in Fortran still works perfectly fine and does the job.
- latch 15y ago
  My understanding of technology as a competitive edge in finance is that: 1 - it's a relatively small part of the sector 2 - it happens in intervals Specifically for #2, you can look at flash trading, where the edge exists for a while, but then everyone more or less catches up..and it's a couple years before the next innovation. Some other complaints: -Bank incentives are almost purely monetary (which does not work). -They tend to hire within the industry (it's an extreme place to find technical and managerial inbreeding). -They are extremely arrogant and prideful (making corrective measures hard to implement, since they aren't identified)
  - ig1 15y ago
    It's actually much broader than just flash trading, essentially you can divide it by which part of the bank it occurs in. Any front office tech (risk management, pricing, analytics, trading) app tends to be on the competitive edge as does anything it relies upon (infrastructure, feeds, tick databases, etc.) Back-office technology (settlement, reconciliation, etc.) tends to move much slower. It also depends on the asset class, more stagnant areas such a mortgages tend to have more stagnant codebases than "hot" areas like FX. Competitive areas aren't the same across all firms either, while one firm might put a lot of money into it analytics technology another might ignore that area altogether and just buy in an off-the-shelf solution accepting that it's not going to compete in that area. Essentially the only way you'll know about the quality of the tech you'll be working with is to be smart and ask questions at the interview stage (this is true for any firm).
    - calpaterson 15y ago
      > Essentially the only way you'll know about the quality of the tech you'll be working with is to be smart and ask questions at the interview stage (this is true for any firm). Cannot emphasise how important this is. No one discusses how to navigate an interview from the perspective of a potential employee.
NickPollard 15y ago
It's also a huge amount of money. In London, which obviously is much more of a financial hub than a technological one, the highest paid jobs for programmers are almost all in the financial industry. Personally, I'd prefer to do something more interesting for less money, but that doesn't mean that it's not tempting.

by latch 15y ago

igorgue 15y ago

I couldn't agree more, I don't really share the - what I think is - meaningless view of the world that banks have. There are ways to make money and helping people be awesome at the same time.

ig1 15y ago

Finance is pretty much like any sector, there's a huge variety between firms and even between individual teams within firms. There are lots of areas of finance where technology is what provides the competitive edge and they tend to be much more agile and use recent technologies, but there are also lots of areas where the code that was written 20 years ago in Fortran still works perfectly fine and does the job.

latch 15y ago
My understanding of technology as a competitive edge in finance is that: 1 - it's a relatively small part of the sector 2 - it happens in intervals Specifically for #2, you can look at flash trading, where the edge exists for a while, but then everyone more or less catches up..and it's a couple years before the next innovation. Some other complaints: -Bank incentives are almost purely monetary (which does not work). -They tend to hire within the industry (it's an extreme place to find technical and managerial inbreeding). -They are extremely arrogant and prideful (making corrective measures hard to implement, since they aren't identified)
- ig1 15y ago
  It's actually much broader than just flash trading, essentially you can divide it by which part of the bank it occurs in. Any front office tech (risk management, pricing, analytics, trading) app tends to be on the competitive edge as does anything it relies upon (infrastructure, feeds, tick databases, etc.) Back-office technology (settlement, reconciliation, etc.) tends to move much slower. It also depends on the asset class, more stagnant areas such a mortgages tend to have more stagnant codebases than "hot" areas like FX. Competitive areas aren't the same across all firms either, while one firm might put a lot of money into it analytics technology another might ignore that area altogether and just buy in an off-the-shelf solution accepting that it's not going to compete in that area. Essentially the only way you'll know about the quality of the tech you'll be working with is to be smart and ask questions at the interview stage (this is true for any firm).
  - calpaterson 15y ago
    > Essentially the only way you'll know about the quality of the tech you'll be working with is to be smart and ask questions at the interview stage (this is true for any firm). Cannot emphasise how important this is. No one discusses how to navigate an interview from the perspective of a potential employee.

NickPollard 15y ago

It's also a huge amount of money. In London, which obviously is much more of a financial hub than a technological one, the highest paid jobs for programmers are almost all in the financial industry. Personally, I'd prefer to do something more interesting for less money, but that doesn't mean that it's not tempting.