Development at a BB to stat arb/HFT

[fina]

Has anyone worked as a developer at a BB? There are probably many roles but I know of those requiring developing trading systems for the traders and maintaining the network. I have a few friends that did go to BBs out of undergrad and some of the work is absolutely dull or your the traders b*tch.

Im assuming its a plus to be recruited by a major bank as they are selective (even for the back office developers which like to call themselves front office since they are working on trading apps). Do these guys get to move to the buy side and work on interesting problems(and receive suitable bonuses) instead of hacking away at some monolithic banking system? Or is one just better off saying the heck with finance if you cant get closer to the quant devel, stat arb, hft side straight from a MS/PhD at an ivy? I just find being an IT guy writing java code for an undergrad trader bro who majored in english a fail. Suck it up and options will open up or once on this path there is no escape?

Any recruiters willing to chime in, where have you move BB developers?

 

[DominiConnor]

There's a whole pile of IT work that is pretty much the same at JP Morgan as at WalMart, though typically JPM pay better.
JPM's a bit of a special case in that it's tech is surprisingly shabby

Fact is most developers in corporates in most lines of business are hacking away at monolithic systems, some of which are older than they are. Only yesterday I was talking to a guy at a bank still using some #~C++ code I wrote in 1993, an issue they have is that modern C++ compilers flatly reject it as syntactically correct, so they're using an MS compiler from 2001 and that is not a unique case. JPM still is critically dependant upon SmallTalk 80, the clue is in the name, yes 1980. Merrils have a big system in Cobol, anyone here remember that ?

One friend of mine spent his whole career at one bank and has just retired, he started work on an analytics package written in C, and retired as an MD when it had gradually had become C++
That may sound bad, but it's far better than the average.

Movement is possible between FO/BO but it's tough and expect not only that your management will not help but that in most cases they will both lie about the prospects and work to stop you doing it.

Options will not "open up" especially if you're a Java developer, that's a commodity skill and I don't mean that in a good way.
You might get to open them yourself and that is the only way to move forward.

Start arb/HFT is development is mostly C++ backed up with Matlab/R with some places using CUDA and FPGAs occasionally Python for prototyping.

 

[Joy Pathak]

Has anyone worked as a developer at a BB? There are probably many roles but I know of those requiring developing trading systems for the traders and maintaining the network. I have a few friends that did go to BBs out of undergrad and some of the work is absolutely dull or your the traders b*tch.

Im assuming its a plus to be recruited by a major bank as they are selective (even for the back office developers which like to call themselves front office since they are working on trading apps). Do these guys get to move to the buy side and work on interesting problems(and receive suitable bonuses) instead of hacking away at some monolithic banking system? Or is one just better off saying the heck with finance if you cant get closer to the quant devel, stat arb, hft side straight from a MS/PhD at an ivy? I just find being an IT guy writing java code for an undergrad trader bro who majored in english a fail. Suck it up and options will open up or once on this path there is no escape?

Any recruiters willing to chime in, where have you move BB developers?

An alumni in my program was a quant developer at a bank and is now a interest rate swaps trader at the same bank.

 

[fina]

What exactly is the official term the divides quant developer from IT at a bank, assuming the bonus pool is not shared with IT? It seems some groups call themselves front office, quant developers when they are in reality back office it or developers - how do you get through the BS, just blatantly ask where the bonus pool will come from and how much freedom they have to work on intellectually stimulating projects?

 

[SimonZheng]

As I known, some quant developers belonging to strategist team is definitely at front office desk. Their reporting line is to head of S&T so I guess their bonus likely share with trading desk. Other developers reports to IT department although they sit together with trader and provide support to trader. Strategist team requires more finance/math/modeling skills as well as programming. Developers at IT group perhaps require less.

 

[DominiConnor]

As the guy who wrote the Wikipedia entry for that, is a headhunter, and who has actually had the job title, I have to share that there is no clear definition, except in the book I've written with Paul Wilmott on quant careers, and it's both circular and self-serving to reference one's own work.

In a given group, the difference can be a doubling/halving of pay for people who often are doing the same work.

One QD I know got the top maths first in his year at Oxford, whereas I know lots of people whose job title is quant but whose work is basically that of an Excel jockey, making risk reports look neat.

Given that in banks Truth == Money and money is a function of how much they don't want you to leave, it follows that the difference is that in a given bank, they don't really care all that much if a developer leaves, a bit more if a quant dev moves on and a bit more if a quant quits.
Not long ago one guy walked straight to his desk from a meeting, picked up his phone, rung me knowing I was 500 metres away and met me for coffee to demand that I got him a new job. The meeting had told him he'd now be in IT. He correctly interpreted that as being shafted and wanted out now.

That delivers the basis for tactics to help you move.
You need to develop and hone skills that get/keep you where you want to be.
As normal I will say C++, but also VBA sometimes. Trader like quants who can do VBA, if they do that VBA for them.