PETER'S Q3/Q4 2024 MARKET REPORT

2024 Q3/Q4 Market Report

Happy New Year, everyone! I’m back after a brief hiatus. We sure have had a lot of downward pointing arrows of late! Here’s the crux of the matter - White Collar Recession. Quoting a Business Insider article on the subject:

But the most surprising feature of the job freeze is the pullback in tech. Hiring has plunged 27% in IT, 32% in quality assurance, and 23% in product management… in the field of program and project management, recruitment has slumped 25%. Even more surprisingly, engineering, which was long considered recession-proof, is down 26%. That kind of cutback in coders was long unthinkable in Silicon Valley, which treated programmers like rare minerals — so scarce that they needed to be preserved at all costs, regardless of how the economy was faring.

Anyone who has been looking for a job over the past year has felt the effects of this pullback. And this nadir is on the heels of a white hot, post-Covid tech job market, making things starker by comparison. In addition, salaries in tech brought many new students into the field. The net of it is that the Supply/Demand ratio hasn’t been this high possibly ever, and we’re seeing the obvious consequences: compensation is down, job searches taking longer, and tenured people are having a particularly hard time finding new opportunities.

Bank Tech Hiring 2025 - AI

It’s no surprise that AI will dominate tech hiring in 2025. For banks the investment in AI is generally around process improvement, operational efficiency, data cleaning, and document processing.

What you don’t see on this list is just about anything to do with trading systems. Our practice has focused for 10+ years on recruiting front-office engineers and quants to build trading systems. Yet the next wave of financial technology recruitment looks to be concentrated in other areas. While front-office trading technology teams will continue to have needs, it’s not an area of growth. TBH, it probably hasn’t been a growth area since before the Credit Crisis. To be sure, AI is being used in trading systems almost everywhere, from helping to write code to moving/cleaning data to optimizing trading strategies. However, these tools are being leveraged to do more with the same/fewer resources.

Further, consider the investment to leverage AI. Firms must invest upfront in people with the necessary skills, infrastructure, licenses, etc. to leverage this technology. While firms have been profitable the past couple of years, any increase in technology spending is going into AI and not towards existing technology teams. One senior IT executive told me recently that while their firm had an outstanding year, the firm’s expense ratio remains above the firm’s target. Thus, despite increased responsibilities and the firm’s profitable year, this person was not expecting to see a pay increase.

AI Use Cases

So where is AI being deployed? Dan Lattimore of the Financial Revolutionist cites five main focus areas:

  1. Digesting data

  2. Translating legacy code (COBOL, etc.) into modern languages

  3. Pattern Detection – Fraud

  4. Generating First Drafts

  5. Natural language processing – getting answers to basic questions

Another BI article, How AI is transforming Wall Street, talks in depth about how AI is being used in investment banking (paywall – let me know if you can’t access, I have subscription and can summarize). The impact is significant, though it won’t make the job easier:

"The hours aren't going to change, because they're a product of the culture more than actual workload.. People will always find things for you to do because the expectation is that you work 80 or 100 hours a week."

Also:

“I hope it does replace a lot of the analyst work," one former junior banker at a New York-based investment bank told BI, referring to the all-nighters entry-level investment banking analysts spend assembling pitch decks or punching numbers into Excel spreadsheets. "A lot of the analyst work is bullshit."

The Competition

The focus of our practice is opportunities at elite firms that pay extremely well. Sometimes we find that candidates lose perspective on what it takes to land the top paying jobs. The post-Covid bubble made a lot of people feel like their next $200k bump is just a resume submission away. I’ve heard, “If you have anything paying 7 figures,” a few too many times over the past few years... The fact of the matter is, quite obviously, that the higher the salary, the stiffer the competition. This article is worth a read. While I don’t agree with everything in the article, I think it’s useful to know what lengths your competition may be going to.

All the news can’t be bad, right? Below are three positive anecdotes to end the year.

Technology Edge

It’s only logical that technology drives efficiency, and it’s Interesting to see Citadel leading the way on this front based on below chart. I suspect that Schonfeld’s figures may predate their large technology layoff a year ago or something else is skewing their figures, since the firm is not generally known as a technology leader among its peers. Given Citadel’s outstanding performance over recent years, their relatively lower percentage of investment staff could be seen as a bullish predictor for tech/quant hiring on the Buy side overall, as we would expect the ratio to move in that direction at other firms seeking similar success.

Slowing Hedge Fund Launches but Increased Assets

Per Reuters, new hedge fund launches in 2024 hit a 24-year low. “The low level of launches globally is down to tougher fundraising conditions in the U.S. and Europe and stiffer internal regulation in China.” However, “The hedge fund industry generally has grown in terms of one of its more closely watched metrics -- assets under management or (AUM).” This growth is largely at the bigger funds, which speaks to the institutionalization of hedge funds discussed in this BI article (paywall, but you can grab it if you’re quick :).

Private Credit – A Growth Area

I had not heard of Private Credit before listening to this episode of the Bloomberg podcast, Odd Lots (great podcast for anyone interested in learning about markets). Over the next few weeks, hardly a day passed without Private Credit coming up. Soon thereafter we placed a SE with a Private Credit business, and there continues to be a lot of activity in this space. This McKinsey article points to increased growth in Private Credit and more tech/quant opportunities for in this business:

We expect four trends to define this new ecosystem: expansion of private credit into a broader array of assets, rise of ecosystem partnerships and open-architecture business models, amplified advantages of scale for competitive differentiation, and increased focus on technology to boost scale and performance.

Note Addressable market size of $34t vs current market size roughly a tenth that size.

Current Priorities

SE: Software Engineer

QD: Quantitative Developer

QR: Quantitative Researcher

HF: Hedge Fund

Buy Side

Note: Below list only includes recently prioritized positions. We will be seeing far more positions from our clients over the coming weeks as firms finalize 2025 hiring.

Most in Demand: C++, Python, QD, Data engineering

  • SE – CE/SQL – Dallas

  • SE – C++ low-latency

  • QR/Trader – Crypto

  • QD – C++/Python, Equity StatArb

  • SE – Macro Technology

  • SE – Full-stack, Python/Typescript/React – San Francisco

  • QD – Global Macro - Miami

  • QD – Python, Flow of Funds

  • QD – Python, Systematic Trading, Global Equities

  • QD – Python, some C++ - Systematic Strategies model implementation

  • QR – ML PhD – medium frequency - large HF

  • QR – Alpha researcher - medium frequency – large HF

  • QR - low-latency – large HF

  • QR – Senior Futures/FX - low-latency – large HF

  • SE – Java – Key Initiatives – Large HF

Sell Side

  • QD – Fixed Income eTrading expert

  • SE – Senior SE with Risk Management experience, Python/Java

FinTech

  • SE – Ultra-low-latency engineer

  • SE - Senior Scala engineer – Distributed Systems

  • SE – Senior SE – Data & AI

  • SRE Lead

  • QR – Credit Quant – Macro and PT

Peter's Q2 2024 Market Report

2024 Q2.14 Market Report

Here we are 13 days into Q3, and I have yet to start my Q2 report. Is it the hot summer weather? Maybe it’s the long hiring slump that’s making these reports a little tedious? Or perhaps I deserve a hiatus after almost 10 years (!) of quarterly reports? All the above?

The market remains tough. We are in a protracted slump that makes this the most challenging market we’ve ever observed. What makes it so? A number of forces have converged:

  • As noted last quarter, the post-Covid hiring bubble drove salaries to unsustainable levels. Expectations are now out of whack w/ reality. It seems harder to get that next job at your current/expected salary, because it is – there are fewer opportunities paying premium salaries. There’s massive divergence between developers at the top paying firms - hedge funds/leading tech firms/high flying AI startups – and the tens of thousands of other firms that pay more standard salaries (per Indeed, average SE salary in US: $105,304). Everyone hears about Big League salaries, but it’s harder to break in now, because there’s simply less hiring than a couple of years ago. There are jobs, but it’s harder to get the plum roles.

  • Offshoring/nearshoring has been in play for long enough that these teams have achieved scale, experience, and ownership of key systems making lower cost hiring away from NYC more and more attractive. And of course, other than time difference, remote work being commonplace makes employing people in lower cost regions an easy choice. The past couple of years even NYC backfills are likely to be a swap for a lower cost, offshore/nearshore resource.

  • AI makes developers more productive, thus contributing to sagging demand. A few months ago I was asked to comment on a statement by UBS chief economist Paul Donovan who wrote "much of computer coding already has the look of a stranded asset." His point was that coding jobs were becoming less valuable. While I stand by my thoughts on the subject, I also realize that I was too literal in my interpretation. If your team is more productive using ChatGPT/Copilot, etc., you do in fact need fewer devs to do the same work.

Please note. We are working with a lot of great people who are interested in making a move. If your firm is hiring, please be in touch!

Tech Hiring 2024 Deep Dive

Colin Lernell published an excellent, in-depth analysis of the tech job market based on his 8 week deep dive into market conditions (video). One of his observations was that more and more leaders are becoming individual contributors. He noted:

  1. Fewer management hires

  2. Emphasis on cutting red tape

Hands-on, hands-on, hands-on! This emphasis is more pronounced at our hedge fund clients. These firms have much smaller technology teams and hire extremely talented, well-rounded engineers who don’t require a lot of management.

Per Lernell, “Meta has gone as far as eliminating the Technical Program Manager role, hinting that it wants to get rid of anything that could be considered red tape. Zuck himself said, ‘part of our work will involve removing jobs -- and that will be in service of both building a leaner, more technical company…’”

On the positive side, note that the overall negative job trend in Tech is bottoming out:

 And though dislocating, AI is a net positive for technology: “AI will accelerate the economic and societal impact of tech once again, leading to more industry and job growth. But AI will also make companies more efficient, no longer needing as many workers for the same output. The net result is probably substantial growth in the tech industry.” This growth should lead to above curve turning sharply upward.

Are you a Low Latency C++ Developer?

There’s low-latency and then there’s low-latency. HFT firms require true low-latency specialists who command a significant premium for very specialized skills. This article references a very informative paper by Paul Bilokon that explores 12 techniques that are key to truly optimized code.

Not ML/AI

The best and the brightest are going into AI for obvious reasons. That makes it harder and harder to find great engineers, especially juniors, who are not ML/AI focused. A resume w/ heavy ML focus in education and early work experience frequently gets a pass from our clients – “it’s not what we do.”

As I bemoan the slow market, it’s clear that our business needs to pivot towards AI! But my point is that front-office technology and quantitative roles at the top firms require extremely good fundamentals – computer science, math, problem solving, and communication, not specific skills. We met with the head of technology recruiting at an elite firm last week. His point of emphasis: “I don’t care about previous financial experience. I just want really great engineers.”

Some Hedge Fund 1st Half Performance Numbers

Performance dictates hiring. Schonfeld struggled for 2 years prior to 2024 and massively cut IT staff after a huge buildout. ExodusPoint appears to be following the same path. One ex-EP employee told me that the firm is pulling back on centralized technology leaving pods to fend for themselves. 

Hedge fund 2024 1st Half

Current Priorities

SE: Software Engineer
QD: Quantitative Developer
QR: Quantitative Researcher
HF: Hedge Fund

Buy Side

Most in Demand: C++, Python, QD, Prior industry experience, especially Buy-side experience

A few different roles:

  • Systematic Trader – track record required – multiple clients

  • Quantitative Product Manager – Quant to lead product design – large HF

The usual:

  • QR – ML PhD – medium frequency - large HF

  • QR – Alpha researcher - medium frequency – large HF

  • QR - low-latency – large HF

  • QR – Senior Futures/FX - low-latency – large HF

  • QD/SE – Python – Risk, Portfolio Construction – large HF

  • QD/QR – Structured Credit – medium HF

  • QD – Python, some C++ - model implementation – large HF

  • QD – Python – systematic HF

  • QD – C++ - systematic HF

  • QD – Algo Developer – Execution – ETE – Large HF

  • SE – Full-stack – Typescript/Javascript, Java/Python – large HF

  • SE – Java – post-trade – large HF

  • SE – C# - post-trade – medium HF

  • SE – C++ - fixed income – large HF

  • SE – C++ - Risk – large HF

  • SE – C++ - Infrastructure engineer – large HF

  • SE – C++ - Research platform engineer – large HF

  • SE – C++/Python – embedded (w/ researchers) engineer – large HF

  • SE – Java – Enterprise Data Engineering – large HF

  • SE – Java/C++ - ETE – Large HF

  • SE – C++ - OTC ETE – Large HF

  • SE – Java – Key Initiatives – Large HF

  • SRE – Electronic Trading Engineering (ETE) – large HF

  • SRE – fixed income – Risk – large HF

  • DevOps – AWS/Cloud/DevOps Engineer – small HF

Sell Side

  • QD – Fixed Income eTrading expert

FinTech

  • Senior Scala engineer - Fixed Income, eTrading – Remote

  • Financial Markets Data Science Guru

PETER'S Q1 2024 MARKET REPORT

2024 Q1 Market Report

So far 2024 is more about what’s not happening than what is happening. What’s not happening is any significant change from the 2nd half of 2023. The cyclical hiring we expected with the start of the new year has not materialized. Banks hiring remains largely frozen. This phenomenon extends to contract hiring as well as fulltime. The only openings we’ve seen are a smattering of contract roles that were funded due to regulatory requirements.

While some hedge funds and FinTechs continue to hire, the number of openings is relatively low. The lack of bank hiring has taken a lot of hiring capacity out of the system. I talk to quite a few people these days who have been looking for a long time – it’s a very tough market for many.

With the overall job market so strong, why is our niche struggling? I think it’s clear that the post covid hiring boom caused a bubble that we’re still working through. Demand is low:

  • Little bank hiring

  • Tech is hiring, but it’s ”relatively minimal”

  • Startup funding way down (see chart below)

  • Hedge funds have been successful filling their positions (little competition)

Add to these points the bubble hangover - people are staying put, because it’s hard to match or exceed current compensation.

Software Engineer Salaries Down

I never thought I’d see SE salaries trend down. The Levels.fyi End of Year Pay Report 2023 shows just that, however. Re the “bubble”, note the average pay for Software Engineers went down in 2023 from 2022, though back up the 2nd half of 2023 vs the first half. 3rd quartile and max salaries did go up for the period, reflecting that demand for the very best people continues to be high, and there is intense competition for those individuals.

Note: Our audience has a significantly higher average compensation and commensurate volatility. I have no statistics but I’m sure our audience has seen significantly larger compensation decreases and has yet to see a recovery.

HackerRank observed in their HR Skills Report, “While the first half of 2023 was lackluster, with lower hiring activity, the second half showed signs of stabilization and positive traction - From July 2023 forward, developer test invites and new test creations, both barometers of hiring activity, increased 86% and 58% respectively.”

Bye Bye Hybrid

Top Paying Companies

I like this list from Levels.fyi, since it matches what we observe (many such lists don’t). Note that below reflects the median across all levels. OpenAI is clearly paying extraordinary salaries for the top AI talent in the world. I had never heard of Coupang before looking at this list…

Current Priorities

Last quarter I wrote, “I expect this list to change dramatically over the next 6 weeks!” It has not.

SE: Software Engineer
QD: Quantitative Developer
QR: Quantitative Researcher
HF: Hedge Fund

Buy Side

Most in Demand: C++, Python, QD, Prior industry experience, especially Buy-side experience

A few different roles:

  • Systematic Trader – track record required – multiple clients

  • Chief of Staff – large HF

  • Quantitative Product Manager – Quant to lead product design – large HF

The usual:

  • SE - Senior Python – Miami

  • SE - C++ – fixed income analytics – large HF

  • QR - Emerging Markets – Dallas

  • QD – Python - Equities quantitative framework developer – startup HF

  • QD – Python, some C++ - model implementation – large HF

  • QR – ML PhD – medium frequency - large HF

  • QR – Alpha researcher - medium frequency – large HF

  • QR - low-latency – large HF

  • QR – Senior Futures/FX - low-latency – large HF

  • SE – Java – post-trade – large HF

  • SE – C++ - fixed income – large HF

  • SE – C++ - Risk – large HF

  • SE – C++ - Infrastructure engineer – large HF

  • SE – C++ - Research platform engineer – large HF

  • SE – C++ - new build - high frequency/low latency – systematic HF

  • SE – C++/Python – embedded (w/ researchers) engineer – large HF

  • QD/QR – C++ - fixed income pricing libraries – large HF

  • SRE – fixed income – Risk – large HF

  • QD – Python – systematic HF

  • QD – C++ - systematic HF

  • QD/SE – Python – Risk, Portfolio Construction – Large HF

  • SE – Java – Enterprise Data Engineering – Large HF

  • SRE – Electronic Trading Engineering (ETE) – Large HF

  • Trade Support – ETE – Large HF

  • SE – Java/C++ - ETE – Large HF

  • QD – Algo Developer – Execution – ETE – Large HF

  • SE – C++ - OTC ETE – Large HF

  • SE – Java – Key Initiatives – Large HF

Sell Side

Most in Demand: Not much

  • QR – Recent PhD - Treasury Strats – Resource allocation – leading IB

FinTech

  • Senior Scala engineer - Fixed Income, eTrading - Remote

PETER'S Q4 2023 MARKET REPORT

2023 Q4 Market Report

2023 was one note, generally a waiting game on interest rates and major world events with firms tightening budgets and running leaner than they have since the Covid boom. There’s no need to repeat myself discussing the state of the market for the past few months. As for 2024, my guess is that the job market will pick up as rates come down. I’m hopeful that many people who had a tough time in 2023 will fare better market in 2024.

Layoffs

Buyside Hustle has a comprehensive list of bank layoffs in 2023. While the layoffs are not large, they do represent an about-face from an aggressive hiring stance over the past couple of years. Our IB clients were frozen on hiring for the entire year, something we haven’t seen since the Credit Crisis.

Hedge fund hiring was another matter. A number of firms continued to hire aggressively spurred by continued good performance. Other firms that haven’t fared as well went the other direction. Schonfeld recently had a large layoff affecting 15% of their workforce of ~1000. Layoffs were heavily concentrated in technology with likely 30% or more of the technology staff let go. Some teams that recruited heavily over the past couple of years were gutted. Another prominent hedge fund recently let go of a few technology employees, taking the more direct approach of layoffs rather than their usual process of managing people out.

Best Hedge Funds to Work for…

You can download the eFinancialCareers “Idea Employers” report here. It’s odd to me that this report is based on respondents who are generally not working for these firms, so the results are very much perception based.

Hedge Funds:

  1. Citadel

  2. Bridgewater Associates

  3. Renaissance Technologies

  4. Millennium Management

  5. D.E. Shaw & Co.

  6. AQR Capital Management

  7. Balyasny Asset Management

  8. Pont72 Asset Management

  9. Elliott Management

  10. Brevan Howard

Banks:

  1. JP Morgan

  2. Goldman Sachs

  3. HSBC

  4. Barclays

  5. BlackRock

  6. Citigroup

  7. Allianz

  8. Deutsche Bank

  9. Morgan Stanley

  10. UBS Group

Yeah, these are weird lists. Ted Pick has work to do to move Morgan Stanley back up the list (they were #4 5 years ago). The banks list is clearly skewed by European respondents.

For comparison, Yahoo Finance published a “15 Best Hedge Funds to Work For” list in March 2023, not caring about the dangling preposition nor what it is actually like to work for these firms, as the list is performance based:

  1. Citadel     

  2. D.E. Shaw

  3. Millennium Management

  4. Bridgewater

  5. Brevan Howard

  6. Elliot Investment Management

  7. Point72 Asset Management

  8. Caxton Associates

  9. Appaloosa Management

  10. Farallon Capital Management

  11. Soros Fund Management

  12. Viking Global Investors

  13. Baupost Group

  14. Lone Pine Capital

  15. Sculptor Capital Management

Note that these lists have little correlation with best career options for the software engineers, quantitative developers, and quantitative researchers who are our main audience. But everyone loves a list.

Training

Firms are introducing more intensive training programs in an effort to attract top talent. As mentioned last quarter, Millennium is offering a technology training program to help build their Miami location. And who wouldn’t want to participate in Citadel Securities’ intensive program featuring participation with leaders of the firm? Citadel also offers the NXT program for technology grads. And Point72 offers Point72 Academy to groom future analysts.

Current Priorities

I expect this list to change dramatically over the next 6 weeks!

SE: Software Engineer

QD: Quantitative Developer

QR: Quantitative Researcher

HF: Hedge Fund

Buy Side

Most in Demand: C++, Python, QD, Prior industry experience, especially Buy-side experience

·        Systematic Trader – track record required

·        Data Scientist – PhD with w/ research accomplishments

·        Lead C# Engineer -  boutique HF – lead new business efforts

·        Lead Python SE – Miami

·        Python /SE - Miami

·        Trade Support Engineer – systematic HF

·        Support Lead Research Technology – systematic HF

·        AWS Engineering and Support – systematic HF

·        Java or Python SE – strategic technology group – leading HF

·        Java SE – authentication/entitlements – leading HF

·        Lead Data Platform SE – Python – leading HF

·        Python/C++ QD Equity Models Engineer – leading HF

·        Python QD – Equity Hedging – leading HF

·        QD portfolio optimization and backtesting – leading HF

·        C++ SE – Trading Systems – systematic HF

·        C++ SE – high frequency/low latency – systematic HF

·        Junior C++ SE – low latency – leading HF

·        C++ QD – 4-8 years – systematic HF

·        Python QD – 4-8 years – systematic HF

·        Python/C++ QD - 4-8 years – systematic HF

·        QR medium frequency, ML, liquid futures – systematic HF

·        Algo C++ QD – leading HF

·        Trading Desk data engineer – Typescript/React/Node.js (not UI) – San Francisco

Sell Side

Most in Demand: Nothing

FinTech

·        Senior Scala engineer - Fixed Income, eTrading - Remote

Peter's Q3 2023 Market Report

2023 Q3 Market Report

We’ve been treading water for the past few months, as the macro factors that affect hiring haven’t changed significantly. Firms continue to operate cautiously as they have been for most of this year.

Banks – hiring is frozen as it has been for the entire year. I hear anecdotal stories of people interviewing at Barclays, BNY, and JPM, but the number of posted positions is at a level not seen since right after the pandemic started.

Hedge funds/Prop - a mix, but current demand is light. Though larger firms continue to build out critical infrastructure for ever more complex strategies/infrastructure, recruiting efforts over the past year have been successful, and many seats have been filled. Competition from Big Tech has been almost non-existent, and the flow has reversed in some cases with quite a few folks moving from Big Tech to Finance.

Fintech – demand is low here too, as money is much tighter. Recruitment for many firms has been taken in-house (sensible given supply of tech talent & recruiters!), so, we don’t see the full picture.

I expect 2024 to be better as banks likely will open up some hiring, hedge funds are likely to grow, and everyone needs technology for everything.

What’s the life preserver in the graphic? I don’t know, but I like the graphic. 

Defi/Crypto

Crypto has cooled significantly since a couple of years ago when firms like Coinbase were scooping up talent at much inflated prices.

I love this article, What If: The Blockchain Economy, by Cloudwall founder, Kyle Downey. This piece significantly enhanced my understanding of the DeFi big picture.

Also, The Real Maxime podcast by Maxime Seguineau is worth following. Maxime interviews business and technology leaders who are shaping the industry. There’s an interview with Kyle Downey and don’t miss the episode with Mrinal Manohar: “5-9% of transaction cost is economic rent incurred in proving that something hasn’t been tampered with.” Hence, Blockchain, cheaper, inevitable.

Though the hype has diminished, there’s a ton going on in this segment, which is growing massively. DeFi remains a good career bet.

Current Remote/Hybrid Statistics

LinkedIn provides some interesting statistics regarding remote/hybrid job postings/applications. We certainly see these trends:

Remote and hybrid job postings have now decreased for the fifth straight month

Pandemic migration trends are reversing as migration to big cities speed up while migration to secondary cities slow down. Note these are trends - all of these cities are growing.

Communication! 

We stress coding skills, problem solving, and mathematical aptitude when it comes to interview preparation. It’s obvious, but equally important at the top firms is communication:

"One thing that always matters to us at Citadel is communication skills," said Griffin. "Our colleagues are almost universally good communicators. We copied that from Goldman Sachs. If you look back 15 years, the people at Goldman Sachs were always more poised and articulate, and better able to express concepts.”

Miami

The hedge fund migration to Florida continues. Here’s a complete list of the firms that have opened offices in Miami. Millennium has rolled out a particularly interesting training program to help attract talent in South Florida.

Buy Side Inside Scoop

Great QuantNet thread here - A senior Buy Side QR has volunteered to answer questions on the QR career track – fields of study, interview process, prep, attributes firms look for, etc. Open ended forum.

More inside perspective on Buy Side careers here from Buyside Hustle, as well as discussion of Work Life Balance by firm type/roles, see chart below. Note these are business side roles, but I think we're all interested?

Current Priorities

SE: Software Engineer

QD: Quantitative Developer

QR: Quantitative Researcher

HF: Hedge Fund

Buy Side

Most in Demand: C++, Python, QD, Prior industry experience, especially Buy-side experience

·        Systematic Trader – track record required

·        Lead Python SE – Miami

·        Senior/Lead low latency C++ Developer - prop trading experience required

·        Trade Support Engineer

·        SRE/DevOps

·        Research Technology Support Lead

·        AWS Engineering and Support

·        Java or Python SE – strategic technology group

·        Java SE – authentication/entitlements

·        Lead Data Platform SE – Python

·        Python/C++ QD Equity Models Engineer

·        Python QD – Equity Hedging

·        QD portfolio optimization and backtesting

·        C++ SE – Trading Systems

·        C++ SE – high frequency/low latency

·        Junior C++ SE – low latency

·        Senior C++ Engineer – ultra-low-latency trading systems

·        Python SE

·        Python/C++ QD

·        Algo C++ QD

·        Trading Desk data engineer – Typescript/React/Node.js (not UI) – San Francisco

Sell Side

Most in Demand: Nothing

FinTech

·        Lead Fixed Income eTrading Protocols Engineer - Fixed Income, eTrading - Remote

PETER'S Q2 2023 MARKET REPORT

2023 Q2 Market Report

In a word, bad. The current market is bad. Computers still need to be programmed, and AI won’t do it yet, so there are always jobs for good developers. However, we’re in a very tough job market right now, and it likely won’t improve until 2024. Take a look at a snapshot of Investment Bank hiring over the past 3+ years:

This picture doesn’t tell the full story. As far as I know, every investment bank is currently frozen on hiring. Yes, there are still job postings on citi.com, jpmc.com, etc., but the current openings are mostly in areas like corporate IT rather than front-office systems. I don’t expect these freezes to end before 2024 as firms are already looking ahead to 2024 budgets, and the same economic uncertainties that drove the first half of this year persist making a turnaround very unlikely this year. Q2 earnings aren’t good.

As highlighted in the last report, hedge funds have been a bright spot this year, continuing to hire in support of ever more complex trading strategies. However, hiring is slowing now, as positions are steadily filled. Of course, there is much more performance variability among hedge funds, so hiring is more variable too. One large HF client abruptly put all tech hiring on hold a few weeks ago and laid off the technology recruitment team due to a poor year. We haven’t seen anything as dramatic at other firms, but it’s certainly not a good sign.

 
 

Fintech is a mix, less dictated by the macroeconomic picture. We have several fintech clients that are actively hiring.

This market has been toughest on mid to senior management. That’s not unusual, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen so many outstanding people unable to find their next opportunity. Over the past decade, Big Tech took up much of the slack when financial firms were downsizing, and clearly those firms are not a fallback right now. Other sectors remain an option, and in fact, US tech jobs showed a net 45,000 gain in May 2023.

Despite this grim news, there are some very good jobs out there. Our Current Opportunities section is brief this quarter, but contains some truly outstanding roles.

Back to Office II

The arc of companies adopting remote/hybrid and now returning to office feels like it is hitting equilibrium. Big companies want their employees back in the office, at least 3 days/week if not more. There’s far less threat from tech companies offering significantly more flexibility to their employees. For example, Robinhood went fully remote and then less than a year later announced RTO 4 days/week. That said, there are still companies offering remote work, but with less competition, expect a lower salary in return. LinkedIn published some interesting statistics on this topic.

A friend of mine recently described the scene at JPMC – people in the office, at their hotel desks, headphones on, typing away…

Big Pay for Some

As mentioned last quarter, top people continue to get paid despite the down market. While our practice doesn’t see “Tom Brady like pay packages,” the $ do trickle down to the SE/QD/QR’s supporting these PMs.

Some Advice If You Are Looking

If you’ve worked in the industry for some time and have significant industry/institutional knowledge, that next job at another IB just isn’t there right now. Look at firms that support the financial industry – consultancies, vendors, etc. These firms will value your institutional knowledge. Companies like Snowflake are building significant verticals in financial services.

Cast a wide net.

Leverage your network – your resume will be lost in a company job portal.

Lower your expectations– your next job may be temporary until things improve. Nobody recommends job hopping, but loyalty works two ways - your next employer needs to justify your staying when more opportunities are available.

Current Priorities

SE: Software Engineer
QD: Quantitative Developer
QR: Quantitative Researcher
HF: Hedge Fund

Buy Side

Most in Demand: Fewer roles currently, hard to generalize

  • Trade Support – Ops – Small HF (great opportunity if you work in trading ops)

  • C++ SE – Trading Systems

  • C++ SE – high frequency/low latency

  • Java/KDB/Python Engineer – uber dev for strategic technology group

  • Senior Java Engineer – ultra-low-latency trading systems

  • Senior C++ Engineer – ultra-low-latency trading systems

  • Python SE

  • Python/C++ QD

  • Algo C++ QD

  • Desk engineer – Typescript/React/Node.js (not UI) – San Francisco (super interesting!)

  • QR Lead – prop trading

  • C++ QD – prop trading

  • C# full-stack SE – prop trading

  • Senior Java SE – Trade Flow – London/Miami

  • Senior Python SE – Commodities – Miami

  • Junior QD – Python

  • Junior QD – Python/C++

  • C++ SE – Execution systems

Sell Side

Most in Demand: Nothing

FinTech

  • Jr-Mid Python Data Engineer

  • Senior Scala Engineer – Fixed Income, eTrading, Scala - Remote

  • SRE Team Lead – Remote

  • Lead Fixed Income eTrading Protocols Engineer - Fixed Income, eTrading - Remote

  • Senior/Lead Platform Engineer – Scala, eTrading, Fixed Income - Remote

Peter's Q1 2023 Market Report

2023 Q1 Market Report

Not much has changed since my last report. The market remains challenging to say the least. Tech layoffs have continued, investment banks are not hiring, and competition for available roles is significant. That said, if you’ve been laid off from Meta, it likely won’t take that long to find employment. I talk to people every week who are actively interviewing and finding good jobs. It’s a matter of broadening one’s search and tamping down expectations, at least to an extent. Significantly more talent is on the market, hence job fit is more fine-tuned, as employers hold out for a talented person who matches more than the first couple of bullet points on the job spec.

Top people continue to get paid. Despite the soft market, we’ve seen some eye-opening offers in recent months. There continues to be an arms race for talent among the top hedge funds, and hedge fund hiring remains a bright spot in this down market. Many of our clients are in growth mode, adding traders, researchers, quantitative developers and developers as quant and technology heavy systematic trading continues to grow. Many of the roles we currently see are on the investment side where standards are extremely high and requirements very specific.

Investment banks are another story, however, as most banks are frozen on hiring. Replacement hires, if possible, are likely to be done in lower cost regions. Bonuses, which were flat or down in 2022, will likely stay flat this year. While bonuses are supposed to be based on individual performance, team performance, and company performance, what’s left unsaid is that the bonus pool is largely dictated by what people are being paid outside the firm. The most important macro compensation metric is what must be paid for retention, and firms won’t be too worried about retention at the end of 2023.

Machine Learning on the Rise

Well that sure sounds stupid. But specifically, we are seeing significantly more demand for ML in trading strategies. To date we have seen relatively small, targeted ML research teams. Now many research teams are looking for ML experience in addition to the traditional math/data/research backgrounds. As for the qualifications they are seeking, it’s usually PhD’s with significant depth in the discipline. While ML is widely used at Big Tech firms, the implementation implications are different. It’s one thing if a model is off and ad imprints aren’t optimized. It’s quite another if your trading system is flawed. I expect to see growing demand for machine learning engineers at our clients.

HackerRank Skills Report – Data Engineering

HackerRank recently published their HackerRank skills report for 2023 based on their testing data (sharing my copy here). I was surprised to find that HackerRank doesn’t edit their report any better than, say CareerBuilder, given that they are a “techy” company. That snarkily said, the one thing that stands out, to nobody’s surprise, is that the world is all about data now.

Note the growth rates for Data Wrangling, Data Visualization, Data Modeling.

Here’s a tip: If you want to add skills that increase your value, focus on data related skills – and not Machine Learning. Sure, ML skills are valuable, but from a supply/demand perspective, those skills are no longer scarce. Just about every recent grad resume I see shows data science and machine learning at the center of their curriculum. What’s not common yet highly valuable, and thus well rewarded, are other crucial data skills.

Data Wrangling is an informal term that we can equate with Data Engineering. Data Engineering is massively in demand, and it’s more than writing data pipelines. Yes, data pipelines are part of it. But the key skill/experience that every company needs is a holistic understanding of the data life cycle and the ability to build systems that provide sophisticated support of data from inception/acquisition through transformation and ultimately to some number of end states. Let me know if this is your specialty – I have a high paying job for you!

Further:

“Over-emphasizing theoretical ML knowledge in assessments and interviews is a common mistake. Teams often neglect core software engineering skills when evaluating ML engineers.

As AI-based products become more mainstream, it's crucial to put equal emphasis on software development skills. They are key to building practical, scalable, and reliable ML applications that can be deployed effectively in the real world.” Ankit Arya, Principal Product Manager| Machine Learning at HackerRank.

From teamblind

Poster:

Snap engineer's coding skill blew my mind

Just interviewed a Snap L4 recently and the dude got all strong hires (incl SD round). I did 30+ onsites and phone interviews and almost nobody got to the end of my question and code it out completely.

This Snap guy went in the right direction within 2 minutes of hearing a question (a harder end of LC hard), and completed discussing the solution with me within 10 and coded it out in another 10-15 minutes... This guy is easily top 1% of all the candidates interviewing at Google. Are Snap engineers usually like this or just this person?

 Reply:

If you're asking hard end of LC hard, then you're a dick.

Current Priorities

Legend:

SE: Software Engineer / QD: Quantitative Developer / QR: Quantitative Researcher / HF: Hedge Fund / IB: Investment Bank

Buy Side

Most in Demand: C++, Python, QuantDev, Data engineering, Execution, Miami, industry experience

  • Java/KDB/Python Engineer – uber dev for strategic technology group – HF

  • QR Lead – mid-sized prop trading firm

  • Research Engineer – HF

  • Research Scientist – PhD – HF

  • Junior QR – python - HF

  • Senior QR – Execution – HF

  • Junior QD – Python - HF

  • QR – alpha researcher – medium frequency futures – HF

  • Junior QD – C++ - HF

  • Cloud engineer – AWS – HF

  • QR – all levels – HF

  • QD – research engineering – Python, C++ - HF

  • QD – model impl – Python, C++ - HF

  • Mid-Senior Java Engineer – Risk/Pricing – HF

  • SE – Commodities – HF

  • QD – Commodities – HF

  • QR – Commodities – HF

  • Mid-Senior C++ SE – HF

  • Jr-Mid C++ SE – HF

  • Senior Java SE – Trade Flow – London/Miami – HF

  • Senior Data Engineer – python - NY/Miami/ - HF

  • Data Science Analyst – San Francisco – HF

  • Web Developer – Typescript, Python, data – San Francisco – HF

  • Mid-senior C++ SE – equity trading – HF

  • Mid-senior C++ SE – low-latency execution - equity trading – HF

  • QD – python, c++ - Prop startup desk

  • QR – python – Prop startup desk

  • Senior Data Engineer – Trading Desk – HF

  • QD “superstar” – 2-5 years – Python – Trading Desk – HF

  • SE C++ - Cloud – Trading Desk – HF

  • QR – mid-frequency – alt data experience – Trading Desk – HF

  • Head of BCP – HF

  • Jr Python SE – Austin – HF

  • Data Engineer – Vertica, Clickhouse – HF

  • Senior Java SE – equity derivatives – risk/pricing – HF

  • Senior low-latency Java SE - HF

Sell Side

Most in Demand: Diversity – with few exceptions, just about the only way IB’s can currently open roles in NYC if for diversity hires.

  • Senior UI Architect

  • Senior Java Engineer w/Knowledge Graph experience

FinTech

  • Jr-Mid Python Data Developer

  • Senior Scala Engineer

Peter's Q4 2022 Market Report

2022 Q4 Market Report

Last quarter I described the factors behind the post-Covid tech hiring bubble. So now what? Tech Talent Is Flooding the Job Market - Harvard Business Review - does an excellent job describing where the market now stands and what lies ahead. Quoting the article, “The tech sector was not prepared for such a sudden increase in interest rates, which dramatically reduced the valuations of companies whose profits would arrive in the distant future.” The ensuing reduction in staffs at many tech firms has led to opportunities for traditional firms:

  • Firms that were priced out of the market for top tech talent now have an opportunity to hire outstanding talent coming from Big Tech, startups, etc.

  • “A year ago, an aspiring, young, software engineer would probably be more inclined to join a crypto exchange than the e-commerce division of a bricks-and-mortar retailer. Now, with technology companies reducing staff, ... any company with sound fundamentals that has yet to completely modernize, can now outcompete tech companies in hiring the talent it needs.” We have seen many examples of this phenomenon.

  • The talent influx will bring modern technology experience and allow these firms to move forward with modernization efforts that were slowed by a lack of talent.

Our clients have told us that they are not reducing salaries for incoming hires. However, they are being more highly selective given the amount of talent that is available. As always, the market or top people remains strong. However, the next tier will need to lower compensation expectations, as they rely on firms that never paid the high salaries that Big Tech normalized in recent years.

RTO

RTO = Return to Office. As labor dynamics have changed, companies have felt more comfortable insisting on workers returning to the office. For tech workers in particular, the hybrid model will likely remain, but the landscape continues to shift towards the office. A year ago companies were amenable to granting fully-remote requests to close candidates - no longer.

Remote fans weren’t helped by Citadel, which ran circles around the competition this year. Said Ken Griffin, “One of our key competitive advantages is my entire team is back at work and the communication and collaboration that goes with an in-office work force is a really powerful competitive advantage when a lot of our competitors are still working remotely.” I spoke to someone at Millennium today who said they are back to 5 days in the office. No official memo was circulated, but it’s been made clear that people are expected in the office. And Another buy side firm commented today that people are now in the office 4-5 days/week.

And finally, there’s Twitter, which ended all remote work under the new regime.

Front and Center

One challenge investment banks face when competing for talent with tech firms is the fact that technology is not the product, and developers often feel like they are not a part of the front-office. Creating Strats organizations in which developer and quants work side by side was an attempt to promote technology’s direct involvement with the trading desks. Now Marco Argenti, CIO of Goldman (former Amazon) has a plan to move engineers directly into the business process. Per the WSJ, “the bank is involved in a sweeping reorganization and is rewriting processes so that developers are more engaged with business goals from the beginning of projects.”

Layoffs

Goldman’s layoffs were certainly no secret. My news feeds have been talking about it since November. The cuts go beyond the usual trimming as new business initiatives are being pruned. Morgan Stanley made cuts in December, and Barclays and Citigroup made cuts in November. And Credit Suisse continues to pare staff. For those who remain, bonuses are down significantly.

No Transparency

The NYC salary transparency law went into effect late last year. Job postings must include a salary range. But this is typical:

“Base pay: $125,000 - $300,000. Base pay does not include other forms of compensation such as discretionary bonus, etc.”

Crypto Regulation?

The  Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act didn’t generate much mainstream news, but it could be a huge impediment to public blockchains, Bitcoin, et al. I don’t support or refute the referenced article, but I think it’s a good overview of the intention of this legislation and highlights the potential impact.

Current Priorities

We are syncing up with our clients to understand their priorities for 2023. Unlike the 2 previous years, hiring did not continue strongly through the turn of the year. We’ll know significantly more about hiring plans over the next few weeks.

Buy Side

Most in Demand: C++, Python, QuantDev, prior-financial experience

  • Electronic Trading Product Manager - Equities

  • Mid-Senior C++ w/ Buy Side Experience

  • Quant Systems Build and Release Engineer

  • Quant Systems Software Developer

  • Application Development Hands-on Lead - Python/C++

  • Systems: Cloud Engineer

  • QuantDev C++

  • Low Latency C++ Engineer

  • Senior Delta One Quant Researcher

  • C++ Software Engineer

  • Senior C++ Software Engineer

  • Data Engineer

  • Senior Data Engineer

  • QuantDev Systematic Strategies – Python + C++/Java

  • Senior QuantDev Systematic Strategies

  • HF Algo C++ Dev

  • QuantDev Central Research Team

  • C++ Developer with Equity Execution Experience

  • C++ Developer – Summit, NJ

  • QuantDev – Python/C++ - Greenwich, CT

  • Mid-Senior C++ Development – Execution Team

  • HFT QuantDev

  • SRE – Data platforms

  • Web Developer – Dallas

  • QuantDev – Mortgages

Sell Side

Most in Demand: Limited opportunities at this time of year – stay tuned!

  • Web Developer – Equities front-office

  • Java Developer - Equities eTrading

  • C++ Developer - Equities eTrading

  • C# Developer – Delta One trading desk

  • Product & Delivery Manager – ED – Data Lineage

  • Data Discovery and Lineage Architect/Delivery Manager

  • UI Dev/Architect - JavaScript/React – Enterprise Knowledge Graph

  • Data Engineer – Enterprise Knowledge Graph – Big Data, Python, Pipelines


PETER'S Q3 2022 MARKET REPORT

2022 Q3 Market Report

The market right now is – not good. You don’t need me to tell you that. The overheated market from a year ago is gone and has taken with it the inflated salaries that became commonplace. There are still high-paying jobs, but competition is fierce and standards high for those firms still hiring at those levels.

So why are we so busy? Hedge funds, hedge funds, hedge funds! As recently as 2 years ago I referenced 9 straight quarters of hedge fund outflows, but since that time the trend has reversed. Hedge funds have performed well during the market downturn. From Hedge funds strike back after a lost decade:

“Hedge funds in today’s bear market have significantly outperformed equities, with average returns of -5.6 per cent between January and June 2022 compared to broader equity market declines of – 20.5 per cent on the MSCI World Index.”

The article also outlines broader macro trends in the industry including higher fee structures (DE Shaw) and a tight talent pipeline. Regarding that talent pipeline, we have a front row watching the Tech industry drain a huge amount of talent from hedge funds, both people leaving finance for Tech as well as grads choosing Tech over Finance to start their careers. Now in growth mode, the Funds are upping salaries and luring top people back.

Why Did Salaries Go Bananas?

Salaries in our industry increased so much over the past 2 years that I wanted to explore how this phenomenon came to pass. The surge in post-Covid tech hiring coupled with a combination of market factors appear to be the perfect storm that fueled the sharp rise in salaries.

Below chart shows the steep increase in salaries since 2020. We see the sharp “hockey-stick” shape that is A) unusual and B) unsustainable. So, what happened?

Demand for top software engineers has outstripped supply for decades. But post Covid, there was an enormous amount of fuel to trigger the spike in salaries:

  • Rising Stock Market

  • Increased VC Funding

  • Record Bank Earnings

  • Hedge Fund Rebound

Stock Market Boom – Inflated stock prices provided FAANG and other tech firms the resources to offer ever larger, stock dominated packages. In addition, people working at these companies saw significant growth in the value of the shares that they had accumulated making them feel like they were earning even more and making them “sticky” with these firms, i.e., harder to recruit and more expensive to outside firms. I had a number of conversations with individuals in their mid-20’s telling me that if I had anything that was 7 figures, we could talk. Those conversations have changed.

Increase in VC Funding – A large uptick in venture funding providing the money needed for startups to compete with Big Tech for talent, even as Big Tech was paying every larger salaries.

Record Bank Earnings – banks losing tech talent to Big Tech had great earnings allowing them to be more competitive.

US Hedge Funds Assets Increased – Systematic and Market Making hedge funds depend on great engineers and quants for their market advantage. These firms are best positioned to pay the most for top talent, and their assets have been increasing (US – globally negative).

The result has been unprecedented salary growth for developers and quants. I wish I could give a real figure for the average growth in compensation over the past 2 years, but it’s very hard with the data I have. Offhand I estimate that salaries for top performers increased 30-50% over just the past 2 years. But there’s a reason your base salary is ~$200k when you earn, say, $600k total per year. Compensation structures allow firms to adjust salaries down when the market warrants it. The toppy money of the past couple of years is has come off the table, and we should expect the hockey stick in the first diagram to look more linear over time.

Google -> Goldman

The flow of tech talent from finance to tech doesn’t just go one way. Interesting hire. Goldman continues to innovate.

So You Want a Citadel Internship?

It’s hard. Really hard: “Citadel had 33,000 applicants and accepted only 290.” Citadel is a tough place to work, unapologetically, but they have no trouble attracting applicants. And it seems to work.

Career Growth

Most people I talk to stress opportunity for growth as a priority when evaluating a career move. I always ask, what does “growth” mean to you? It’s not uncommon that people don’t really know, they just know that they should be seeking it. This slide presentation by Nikolay Stoitsev is a good discussion of Individual Contributor vs Engineering Manager Career Ladders, choosing the path that’s right for you, and how to grow at each level. I doubt that most people are as directed and premeditated about career progression as Nikolay, but it’s good food for thought and contains a lot of practical ideas.

Defi?

I watch Defi because it’s becoming a larger and larger part of the overall financial market, draws a lot of talent, and I find it fascinating

The Merge happened successfully. “The network’s climate pollution drops from roughly 11 million tons of CO2 emissions a year to around 870 tons, which CCRI says is slightly less than the amount of energy 100 homes in the US would use in a year.” A huge win! But now: “The Ethereum blockchain has become more centralized following the shift to proof-of-stake as 60% of validators are managed by only four companies.” That seems not great.

Did you see: Most Likely This Person Is Satoshi Nakamoto.

Affinity North Team

Not everyone knows the great Affinity North team. Please see their bios linked below:

Current Priorities

FinTech

Most in Demand: Distributed Systems/Micro Services, Cloud, Data Engineering

  • BlockChain Application Developer – language agnostic, prior BlockChain experience not required

  • BlockChain Platform Developer – language agnostic, prior BlockChain experience not required

  • Mid-Senior Scala Developer

  • Lead Developer – Consumer Risk – Credit/Fraud experience required

  • Senior Developer – Payments systems – language agnostic

  • Senior C# Developer

Buy Side

Most in Demand: C++, Python, Data Engineering, Cloud, SRE, Trading Systems Support

  • Mid-Senior C++ Developer – Execution team

  • Full-stack developer – Python/Java/Javascript

  • Senior Options Analyst – Options Post-Trade SME – Operations

  • SRE – Data platforms

  • Trading Systems Support Lead

  • Tech Writer – data science

  • HFT QuantDev – C++/Python

  • Senior Low-latency C++ Developer – OMS

  • Senior QuantDev – C++ - Options, Equities

  • QuantDev – centralized research platform

  • Senior QuantDev – centralized research platform

  • HF Algo C++ Developer

  • Quant Researcher – equity alpha research

  • C++ QuantDev – Equity Execution/Market Microstructure

  • Senior C++ Developer – low-latency - small, captive HF

  • Data Engineer – Python

  • Junior (0-2+ years) - QuantDev – Python

  • C++ low-latency QuantDev

  • Cloud Engineer – AWS/GCP

  • Quant Researcher- financial/alt data, trading signals/models

  • Ultra-low-latency C++ Developer

  • Senior Java Developer – post-trade

  • Full-stack Data Engineer

  • Data Engineer/Senior Data Engineer – NYC/Miami

  • C++ Engineer/Senior C++ Engineer – NYC/Miami

  • Senior Software Engineer – Post-Trade - Fixed Income experience required – NYC/Miami

  • Low-latency C++ Developer – market making

  • Quantitative Developer – Core components

  • Front-end Tooling Engineer

  • C++ Developer – Digital Assets

  • Cloud Architect – Public Cloud Enablement

  • Software Engineer – Public Cloud

  • Systems Support Engineer (SSE)

  • Reliability Engineer (SRE)

  • Tech Lead Cloud Data platform

  • Junior Python QD – small Prop firm – “many hats”

  • Java Developer – Structured Products - Intex

Sell Side

Most in Demand: C++, Java, Data Engineering, Big Data, Cloud

  • C# WPF Developer

  • Java Developer – FX Pricing

  • C++ Developer – OMS/market data – options trading

  • C++ Developer – OMS/cross asset

  • Scala Developer – Credit eTrading Strats

  • Data and Knowledge Engineer – Semantic and Graph technology

  • Senior UI Dev/Architect – Semantic and Graph technology

  • Global Lead - Sustainability Engineering and ESG Data Analytics

  • Lead Java Developer – Investment Management

 

PETER'S Q1 2022 MARKET REPORT

Since the beginning of 2021, we’ve been talking about the strength of the hiring market and rising salaries for just about everyone. Looking back at the last couple of quarters, I wrote “white hot” and “gold rush” among other things describing this market. The strong market continues, but we’re seeing signs that last year’s frenzy has cooled:

  • A division at a major investment bank with aggressive hiring goals has filled their quota and is reassessing new hires

  • A large FinTech has paused hiring to absorb the large number of recent hires

  • Compensation is no longer steadily ticking up. Salaries jumped significantly last year as competition for talent was intense. However, there has been a reset to a new norm, and we don’t see continued rapid escalation in salaries

Many companies have been very successful in hiring over the past year. By raising compensation and recruiting aggressively, firms have managed to attract talent. Larger firms have been slower to adjust what they can offer, weighed down by a large workforce that may now be underpaid (see below).

I’m sure many people reading this are wondering where their increase is. If you’ve been a loyal employee and remained at the same firm for several years, don’t you deserve to be “marked to market” by your current employer? The fact of the matter is that many firms are reactive rather than proactive when adjusting salaries. Firms simply can’t afford to give hundreds or thousands of employees significant raises. My advice to you: If you haven’t seen your salary go up significantly over the past couple of years, make sure to have a constructive conversation with your boss. I’m hearing that the “sorry I can’t but we’ll try next year” message has been replaced by “let me see what I can do.” And if that doesn’t work, be proactive, manage your career, test the market, and find your value.

Regional Leveling

We touched on this topic last quarter. Hired’s 2021 State of Tech Salaries report has the following graphic:


These averages are low for this audience, but the interesting information is the trends. NYC and SF show decreasing salaries on average, indicative of the ability of companies in these areas to hire cheaper, remote employees. However, do we trust this data? I certainly don’t understand the Dallas figures, and though I wanted to mine more from this article, I couldn’t figure out what their data is smoking. Entry level employees making the same as 2019? I don’t think so.

Let’s look at the Dice Report:

These data trends look more reasonable. Here we see flat growth in NYC and lower growth in Silicon Valley vs significant growth in secondary cities like Pittsburgh and Miami.

Our practice is more focused, and we have observed the following:

  • $ significantly up for top junior-mid level developers

    • 50% or better in some cases

  • Solid $ growth for all experience levels

  • Employees were taking significantly less money to work remotely, but with Big Tech embracing fully Remote, this discount will likely disappear

NYC rents have climbed back to pre-pandemic levels, so reports of an exodus would seem premature. I’m sure that many of those pricey rents are afforded by the people we work with who are making significant $ at a young age.

Blockchain Curious

Our business necessarily adjusts to where people want to work, and more and more that’s DeFi. Occasionally we meet people who tell us, “Anything but crypto,” due to the massive hype surrounding it. I make an effort to understand where things are going, and I thought this article describing a former Goldman exec’s motivation for buying a “Bored Ape” was particularly interesting. He concludes, “The future has arrived… You might not see it yet but when you look back in 10 years you will see the entire worlds business model has changed. Forever.“ That feels right to me.

Myself I have gone from NFT skeptic to “blockchain curious.” I received this from someone who I hold in high regard:

If you are a "NFT's are a stupid tax on rich people" person, you'll get eaten alive.  If you're a "hey, we're still trying to figure out cool things to do with an open ledger and NFT's are just at the current front of that," then you just might be blockchain curious.

We currently have 2 Blockchain FinTech clients, and that number will certainly expand this year.

Affinity North Team

Not everyone knows the great Affinity North team. Please see their bios linked below: 

  • Armine Khudinyan – Armine will soon be exploring the next chapter of her life! We are sad to see her go and so grateful to have been able to work with her for almost 6 years! Affinity North will not be the same without her!

  • Jennifer Jacobs

  • Jim Soufleris just joined us – more to follow

  • Peter Wagner

  Current Priorities

NOTE:   This is only a sampling, too many roles to include!

  • Compensation continues to be strong

  • Hybrid/flexible work arrangements the de factor standard for almost all firms

FinTech

Most in Demand: Distributed Systems/Micro Services, Data Engineering, Javascript

  • Senior Credit Quant – Machine Learning – bond pricing

  • BlockChain Development Manager – language agnostic, prior BlockChain experience not required

  • BlockChain Application Developer – language agnostic, prior BlockChain experience not required

  • BlockChain Platform Developer – language agnostic, prior BlockChain experience not required

  • BlockChain Developer – Haskell (first Haskell job!)

  • Lead front-end developer – Javascript (Typescript), React

  • Java/Scala Engineer with FIX experience

  • BlockChain Developer – mix of Python/node.js/C++ - small, cutting-edge startup w/ top, top engineers

  • Data Engineer - Python, Go, Postgres, Kafka

  • Services Engineer - Go, gRPC, PostgreSQL, Kafka, Redis, Docker, Kubernetes (Java/C++ developers will transition to Go)

  • Platform Engineer - Distributed Systems – Go (Java/C++ developers will transition to Go)

Buy Side

Most in Demand: C++, Python, Data Engineering, Cloud, Front-end Javascript/Typescript

  • Junior Developers – Python/C++

  • QuantDev – Central Research Technology – Python/C++

  • Quant Researcher – Equity alpha research

  • QuantDev – Central Research Technology – Python/C++ - Equity alpha systems experience

  • ML Research Engineer – Python/C++ - ML research system implementation

  • Low-latency C++ Engineer – market data, OMS

  • Core C++ Developer – trading infrastructure – OMS, execution

  • Automation Architect – CI/CD – Linux, Jenkins, Ansible

  • Python Data Engineer

  • Senior C++ Engineer – high performance/low-latency, demonstrated low-level experience

  • Data Engineer – Python, SQL

  • C++ Engineer – Electronic Trading Strategies

  • Quant Research Lead – C++, Python, R – Drive research agenda - statistical inference models and predictive analytics

  • Quant Researcher – alpha research

  • Quant Dev – alpha research

  • C++ Engineer – mid-senior - matching engine, algos, CLB/CRB

  • Data Engineer – mid-senior – Python, Cloud/AWS

  • Senior Java Engineer – Fixed Income

  • QuantDev – Python/C++ - Portfolio Solutions

  • Commodities Data Engineer – Python   

Sell Side

Most in Demand: Java, Data Engineering, Big Data, Cloud – Diversity

  • COO – Securitized Lending

  • Development Manager – IB Consumer Products - ~20 directs

  • Development Manager – Executive Director – Credit Risk

  • Cloud Architect – Hands-on Java

  • Hands-on C++ Development Manager – Directory - Equities eTrading

  • Java Developer – Semantic and Graph Technologies

  • Java/Scala Developer – Securitized Lending

  • Java/C# Lead Developer – Credit Trading Technology

  • Java Dev - Smart Process Automation and Robotics Center (SPARC) group

  • C++ Developer – Fixed Income eTrading

  • Senior Java Developer/Cloud Architect

  • C++ Developer – CVA Systems

  • Senior UI Developer – Javascript/Angular

  • C++ Developer – equity eTrading

  • Python Developer – Securitized Products

  • Quantitative Developer – Full-stack – AMD

  • UI Developer – C# and Javascript

  • Senior C++ Developer – equity eTrading

  • Python, ML Developer – ML Center of Excellence

  • Quant - eRates

  • Java Developer – Micro-services, Kafka

  • Data Analytics – HR Data

  • Java Developer - Fixed Income Front-Office

  • UI/UX Architect - Hands-on Senior Lead

  • Quant – FX/Rates Pricing

  • Java Developer - Front Office Automated Trading – Fixed Income

  • Java Developer – Rates Electronic Trading

  • Quant Researcher – FX systematic Market Making

  • Quant Researcher – Commodities systematic Market Making

  • Quant – Equity Futures

  • Lead Java Developer – Liquidity and Funding

  • Quant – Rates/FX

  • Quant – Credit – Algo Trading Research

  • QuantDev – Fixed Income Algo Trading – Execution

  • Portfolio Trading Strat – Credit/ETF

  • Quant – RMBS

  • Quant – CLO Optimization/Leveraged Finance Strat

  • Quant – Corp Treasury

  • Quant - Asset Management - Macro + Markets

Affinity North

 We are expanding. If you are at the point in your career where you’re interested in trying something different, please contact me. We are ex-developers/quants recruiting great people in these fields for some of the top firms in the world. It’s a lucrative field and highly flexible.

 

PETER'S Q4 2021 MARKET REPORT

2021 may have seen the Great Resignation, but in our field 2021 has been more like a Gold Rush. Developers are on the move and seeing significant pay increases. Massive demand and compensation transparency provided by sites like levels.fyi and Teamblind have juiced the market. When I was working tech jobs, the expectation was that one could expect a 20% bump when changing jobs. A few years ago I tamped peoples’ expectations down to 10-15% increases.  Yesterday I talked to someone who is well paid now and looking for a 30-40% bump. He'll probably get it.

What’s driving the huge increases? Big Tech for sure. This phenomenon wouldn’t be happening without the soaring stock prices of the FAANG companies. More and more we are seeing other firms bid competitively to prevent losing top candidates to these firms, which is only creating more competition. One firm recently told us, whatever Google is paying, we’ll pay more. Another dynamic is that the excitement of joining firms like Google/Facebook/Amazon has faded to a degree. These firms are now huge. Developers feel like their contributions are less significant, and there's the inevitable big company bureaucracy to contend with. What’s the solution? Pay people more. Big tech firms have upped pay to maintain a steady flow of new hires and retain their better people.

What do you do if you don’t have shares of Facebook stock or options in a high-flying startup to offer prospective employees? Improve benefits, offer more flexible work arrangements, up the $, and recognize that it’s going to take longer to hire.

Remote Trend

I keep talking about the fact that hybrid/remote work arrangements are here to stay. Proof? Per LinkedIn: “Pre-pandemic, 1/67 jobs posted on LinkedIn were fully remote. Today: 1/7 postings are remote.”

The appeal of working remotely is obvious. However, I do agree with this sentiment from a Morgan Stanley MD:

“If you’re 21 to 35, you are nuts not to be in the office all the time… It’s the prime time to be soaking up knowledge from older, more experienced bankers — and it’s not going to happen in your PJs on a Zoom call.”

Industry publications that talk about “bankers” are usually not referring to IT professionals. However, unless you are content to be paid for coding alone, in order to advance your career, you need to be in the office more than not.

Dispersion

The increasing geographical distribution of talent coincides with a trend towards the dispersion of venture capital. The graph below reflects the decreasing concentration of VC dollars in Silicon Valley.

Companies with near-shore strategies in cities like Dallas, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, etc. are now finding that they are competing for local employees with companies that are hiring remotely and paying more than the local standards. Expect geographical differences in salaries to decrease.

Cloud Banks

Goldman markets itself as a FinTech firm to help attract technical talent. They have embraced FinTech more than any other bank. Recently they partnered with Amazon to offer GS Financial Cloud for Data, making market data and software tools available to hedge funds and asset managers.

Citi recently announced the sharing of post trade data via Snowflake. Is this the end of 50 years of getting files via FTP?

Crypto

Where’s the action? That’s easy - Crypto is attracting money and talent at an accelerating pace.

“This massive amount of dry powder minted at least 47 companies with valuations above $1 billion — so-called “unicorns” — in the crypto market.”

When Citi starts a Crypto Division, you know the market is becoming mainstream.

Public Cloud

If you think that hedge funds won’t run their proprietary models on public cloud, think again.

Hiring

Everyone is hiring. Please be in touch if you are interested in discussing the current market.

Peter's Q3 2021 Market Report

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 There is no letup in the white hot, post-covid job market. End of year hiring freezes are non-existent this year. Companies continue to try to fill a backlog of open positions, and make whole payments aren’t uncommon even this late in the year with firms desperate to fill openings. The recruitment by Big Tech of talent from financial firms continues, creating more openings and opportunity in financial services. We have more senior/management roles at hedge funds than we’ve ever had. And the overall number of open technology roles at investment banks continues to rise even this late in the year.

NYBankOpen2021.png

Covid has led to The Great Resignation, a phenomenon that largely doesn’t apply to this audience, but is manifest as a strong demand for remote work. Many firms are losing good people when they insist on a return to the office. Flexible work arrangements are increasing, and I suspect more and more firms will embrace remote work as a permanent option. It won’t take too many significant departures to change corporate thinking regarding fully embracing remote work.

The hybrid work setup that we’ve predicted most firms would adopt is steadily becoming the de facto standard at firm after firm. Amazon this week told teams that they could decide on a team-by-team basis how many days a week are expected in the office. Only a few months ago, larger firms were open ended in their discussion of what policy would be going forward. However, over the past week we’ve had calls with both of our investment banking clients wherein managers have said they don’t see ever returning to 5 days in the office. One manager flatly said that the hybrid setup is now permanent. There’s no going back.

Affinity North

We are expanding. If you are at the point in your career where you’re interested in trying something different, please contact me. We are ex-developers/quants recruiting great people in these fields for some of the top firms in the world. It’s a lucrative field and highly flexible.

TIOBE

It’s always interesting to look at the TIOBE index to see the trends in popularity of top programming languages. Python has displaced Java and C as the longstanding holders of the top position, largely at the expense Java, which from the chart, is in steady decline (sorry NYJavaSIG!). Javascript has rocketed in popularity for front-end work (and now back-end as well), but surprisingly its chart is relatively flat.

TIOBEPython2021.png
TIOBEJava2021.png
TIOBEJavascript2021.png
TIOBEC++2021.png

We see massive demand for C++ from our hedge funds clients, java at the investment banks, and broadly for python and javascript. Currently the biggest language premium has to be for great C++ developers. Maybe I should have stuck w/ C++, which I learned 30 years ago!

Wants

“When math wizards redirect their quant proclivities toward consumer technology they become, as it were, a Want.”

The migration of talent from finance to Tech firms isn’t just software engineers. Quants are being wooed too, though I don’t agree that mathematicians are more in demand than software engineers.

Returnships

I had never heard of a “returnship” until an article about this Goldman program showed up in one of my news feeds this week. The concept really resonates with me – it makes so much sense. Here’s are 10 companies that offer returnships, and here’s the link to Goldman’s 2022 program.

Affinity North Team

Not everyone knows the great Affinity North team. All are very experienced and expert in the financial technology field. Please see their bios linked below:

·         Armine Khudinyan

·         Jennifer Jacobs

·         Alan Todtenkopf (sabbatical)

·         Peter Wagner

Current Priorities

NOTE:   This is only a sampling, too many roles to include!            

FinTech

Most in Demand: Distributed Systems/Micro Services, Java, Javascript, Cloud

·         BlockChain Application Developer – language agnostic, prior BlockChain experience not required

·         BlockChain Platform Developer – language agnostic, prior BlockChain experience not required

·         Director of Cloud Engineering

·         Director of Engineering Social Networks

·         Director of Engineering Wealth Management applications

·         Development Manager – leading FinTech

·         Software Engineer - Back-end – Java – leading FinTech

·         Software Engineer - Front-end – Typescript – leading FinTech

·         Software Engineer - Mobile – cross-platform/iOS

·         Software Engineer - Operating Tools – back-end

·         Software Engineer - Operating Tools – full-stack

·         Lead Application Developer – Java/Scala

·         Data Analyst – Python, Jupyter Notebooks

·         Product Manager - Derivatives, XVA, Margin, RWA, CCAR

·         Quantitative Developer – Python, Fixed Income, complex Optimization

·         Technical Writer – former developer

·         Developer – Python, Fixed Income

·         Data Infrastructure Engineer – Python, Terraform, Docker, Kubernetes

·         Distributed Systems Engineer - Go, Kafka (Go experience not required)

·         Senior full-stack Engineer - Typescript, React, Go, Kafka

·         Senior Data Engineer - Python, SQL, Go, Postgres, Kafka

·         Data Engineer – Data Ops – Python, SQL, Go, Postgres, Kafka

Buy Side

Most in Demand: C++, Senior/Lead Engineers, Python, Data Engineering

·         C++ Engineer – unending demand for keen C++ developers

·         Senior C++ engineer – multiple, very senior C++ roles

·         Senior engineer – C++/Python – new centralized research platform – algo hedge fund

·         Lead engineer – Quant Trading Platform – multi-manager hedge fund

·         Senior Java engineer – discretionary macro fixed income - multi-manager hedge fund

·         Development manager – post-trade processing – algo hedge fund

·         Development manager – OMS/Market Data – algo hedge fund

·         Development manager – Risk – algo hedge fund

·         Senior C++ engineer – OMS – hedge fund

·         Senior UI focused engineer – NY or Miami

·         Senior Java engineer – NY or Miami

·         Junior Alpha Researcher – algo hedge fund

·         Quant Developer – algo hedge fund – to build new research platform

·         Senior Quant Developer – algo hedge fund – to build new research platform

·         Senior Business Analyst – manage PM onboarding

·         ML Researcher – Applied Machine Learning – algo hedge fund

·         Senior Java Engineer – Fixed Income Risk/PL – Fixed Income Risk/PL SME               

·         Javascript/Typescript/ReactJS UI Engineer - Fixed Income Risk/PL (FTE/Contract)

·         Low-latency C++ Engineer – mid-size prop trading firm

·         Quant Developer – C++, Python

·         Quant Trader - C++, Python, data science, statistical inference models and predictive analytics

·         Quant Research Lead - C++, Python, data science, statistical inference models and predictive analytics

·         Junior Quant Researcher – C++, Python, Stats/ML

·         Quant Researcher – Alpha research – C++, Python, Stats/ML

·         Data Engineer – Structured Credit

·         Full-stack developer – UI focus – startup hedge fund

·         Senior Trading Systems Engineer – C++, OMS, eTrading, low-latency a plus

·         Senior Applications Developer – Java, Javascript

Sell Side

Most in Demand: Java, Cloud, Data Engineering, Big Data – Diversity

·         Quant Researcher - AMD Strats – PhD

·         Quant Researcher - AMD Strats – MFE or equivalent

·         Quant Developer – AMD Strats

·         VP SRE – NYC/Dallas/Salt Lake City

·         C++ Developer – CVA Systems

·         Java Developer - Commodities – Front-Office Risk - VP

·         Systems Support - Low-latency, equity trading

·         Quantdev – Asset Management – Portfolio construction – Python, Java, or C++

·         Java Developer – Dallas – multiple roles

·         Data Engineer – Dallas – multiple roles

·         Java Developer – Rates eTrading

·         ED: Business Process Transformation (Process & Task Mining) Lead

·         App Dev, Business Process Transformation (Process & Task Mining)

·         ED: Semantic and Graph Technology - Application Development Lead

·         App Dev, Semantic and Graph Technology

·         ED: Global Head of Cloud Engineering

Contract

We now send out a weekly overview of contract opportunities. If you do not currently receive this listing, please let us know, and we will add you to the distribution.

PETER'S Q2 2021 MARKET REPORT

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The market for tech professionals is on fire right now. I have never experienced as robust a market. Everyone is hiring.

Investment bank hiring (see chart Q1) has only continued to trend upward. Among the large banks we track, there are currently ~1800 tech jobs posted in the NYC market. That number is almost double the number at the end of Q1 and three times the number of posting we saw at any time last year, even pre-Covid. That figure stands at the highest level it has for all of 2021, despite aggressive hiring since the beginning of the year. There is no sign of this market slowing down any time soon.

This is the first rising-tide-lifts-all-boats market we have seen in some time. Salaries and contract rates are up across the board. The financial industry is feeling intense competition from Big Tech, and companies are responding. Base salaries and overall packages are up significantly from just a couple of years ago. Salaries for lower-cost, near-shore locations like Dallas and Florida are also very competitive.

Back to the Office

Hybrid work arrangements continue to evolve. Now that people are returning to the office, companies are having to establish what the new rules of engagement are. The top CEO’s have all made statements about an expectation of returning to the office, and Goldman’s David Solomon called remote work an “aberration.” However, the rules are going to be different for IT departments. Arrangements will be more relaxed for tech workers, and managers will make their own decisions regarding their teams. Do not expect badge swipes to be tracked. How else can these firms compete for top people with the firms that are embracing remote work?

We hear from many people every day that remote work is a significant priority. Hybrid work will continue to evolve with the ultimate arrangement determined by a firms’ ability to attract and retain top people. Flexible work arrangements are a new currency.

Does it matter? This article says there is no impact on innovation. But if you are trying to raise your profile and get ahead, do you really want to not be in the office?

Hedge Funds Still Pay

With steady increases in share prices, tech firms have been able to poach from the financial industry for some time with stock-heavy packages. However, top payers in the financial industry continue to poach from tech firms with significant, all-cash compensation. Stock prices cannot go up forever. Notable is Two Sigma’s recent hire of Carter Clark Page. Our hedge fund clients are paying what it takes to attract top people.

Cloud Cloud Cloud

We are seeing more and more cloud focused roles including an ED level Cloud Architect role at Morgan Stanley. A cloud partnership between Morgan Stanley and Microsoft was announced recently. The cloud architect role will surely be involved in the evolution of Azure for the financial market.

DeFi

DeFi is evolving quickly and shedding disbelievers. Major hedge funds are setting up DeFi funds. And Goldman now offers bitcoin derivatives. And in an only-in-the-twenty-first-century marketing play, GrayScale Investments has partnered with the New York Giants, surely yielding click-throughs for people thinking, “What the heck?”

Affinity North Team

Not everyone knows the great Affinity North team. All are very experienced and expert in the financial technology field. Please see their bios linked below:

·        Armine Khudinyan

·        Jennifer Jacobs

·        Alan Todtenkopf (sabbatical)

·        Peter Wagner

Current Priorities

NOTE:   This is only a sampling, too many roles to include!            

FinTech

Most in Demand: Distributed Systems/Micro Services, Data Engineering, DevOps

·        BlockChain Application Developer – language agnostic, prior BlockChain experience not required

·        Application Lead Developer – Java/Scala

·        Remote: Production Support Engineer

·        Remote: FIX Engineer – Asian Markets – Java/Scala/FIX – West Coast or Hawaii time zone ideal

·        Remote: Pre-Trade Developer – Asian Markets – Java/Scala/Fixed Income – West Coast or Hawaii time zone ideal

·        Remote: Post-Trade Developer – Asian Markets – Java/Scala/Fixed Income – West Coast or Hawaii time zone ideal

·        Data Analyst – Python, Jupyter Notebooks

·        Product Manager - Derivatives, XVA, Margin, RWA, CCAR

·        Quantitative Developer – Python, Fixed Income, complex Optimization

·        Developer – Python, Fixed Income

·        Full-stack engineer - Python/Javascript – early stage startup – equity position

·        Data Infrastructure Engineer – Python, Terraform, Docker, Kubernetes

·        Distributed Systems Engineer - Go, Kafka (Go experience not required)

·        Senior full-stack Engineer - Typescript, React, Go, Kafka

·        Senior Data Engineer - Python, SQL, Go, Postgres, Kafka

·        Data Engineer – Data Ops – Python, SQL, Go, Postgres, Kafka

Buy Side

Most in Demand: C++, Python, Data Engineering, DevOps

·        Trading Systems Developer – Build a trading platform from scratch – OMS, Risk, Reporting – Startup Hedge Fund

·        Junior Dev/Strat – Java, SQL – Asset Manager

·        Python, Javascript Engineer – Large Hedge Fund – Miami

·        Quant Developer – C++, Python

·        Quant Trader - C++, Python, data science, statistical inference models and predictive analytics

·        Quant Research Lead - C++, Python, data science, statistical inference models and predictive analytics

·        Junior Quant Researcher – C++, Python, Stats/ML

·        Quant Researcher – Alpha research – C++, Python, Stats/ML

·        Data Engineer – Structured Credit

·        Reference Data Engineer – Java, SQL, Reference Data

·        Senior Risk Engineer – Java, financial products, Risk

·        Senior Trading Systems Engineer – C++, OMS, eTrading, low-latency a plus

·        Senior Applications Developer – Java, Javascript

·        Javascript/Typescript/ReactJS UI Engineer

·        Equity Risk C++ Engineer

·        Fixed Income eTrading Java engineer

·        C++ Engineer – eTrading platform

·        Market Data C++ Engineer

·        Mid-senior Real-time Java Developer – trading systems

·        Commodities Data Engineer – Python

 

Sell Side

Most in Demand: Java, DevOps, Data Engineering, Big Data – Diversity

·        C++ Developer – CVA Systems

·        Systems Support - Low-latency, equity trading

·        Quantdev – Asset Management – Portfolio construction – Python, Java, or C++

·        Java Architect – AMD Engineering – NOT a coding role

·        Product Manager – Data products

·        Java Developer – Dallas – many roles

·        Data Engineer – Dallas – many roles

·        Senior Java Developer – Rates eTrading

·        Java Contractor – Rates eTrading

·        Fullstack Engineer – Java, Javascript – Liquidity Engineering

·        ED: Cloud Architect – Azure cloud expert

·        Python Engineer – Investment Management

·        ED: Business Process Transformation (Process & Task Mining) Lead

·        App Dev, Business Process Transformation (Process & Task Mining)

·        ED: Semantic and Graph Technology - Application Development Lead

·        App Dev, Semantic and Graph Technology

·        VP: SRE – NYC, Dallas, Salt Lake City

·        ED: Global Head of Cloud Engineering

·        VP/ED: QuantDev FICC Systematic Market Making

·        VP/Contract: Fixed Income eTrading Java engineer

Peter's Q1 2021 Market Report

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This chart says it all now, at least when it comes to when people will be back in the office. As such, it is only a few months until the next major transformation of the workplace will start to manifest itself. That transformation may be the largest long-term effect of the pandemic. It’s now clear that hybrid work setups will dominate the employment landscape going forward. Employees want it, and it is cheaper for employers – win/win = inevitable. Some real examples:

  • Two Sigma testing 2 days remote after Labor Day

  • Spotify has told workers they can work anywhere

  • Salesforce expects workers in the office 1-3 days/week

  • Citigroup said a majority of workers would be designated hybrid with an expectation of at least 3 days/week in the office

We see it very clearly: Employees want flexibility and are willing to trade significant $ for it.

This Forbes article talks about how Goldman, Google, and other firms are “getting it right” moving to return to offices and offer flexibility to employees.

Busiest Market in Years

Investment Bank IT Job Listings for NYC

Investment Bank IT Job Listings for NYC

Investment Bank IT Job Listings for NYC

Investment Bank IT Job Listings for NYC

I have commented on location strategy and various other factors dampening hiring in New York for the past couple of years. While those factors persist, the overall hiring picture is very good. We are as busy as we have ever been, as we experience a significant uptick in hiring from banks, hedge funds, and fintech firms.

Above is a chart of aggregate IT hiring in NYC among the top banks. While the 1st quarter consistently shows a cyclical upward trend, the action in 2021 shows significantly stronger hiring across all banks than in 2020. Granted it’s an unusual year for year over year comparisons, but the trend for 2021 is clear. We normally would expect these numbers to soon level and then decrease for the rest of the year. We’ll watch and see.

What’s driving the hiring? The trend is broad, but we see continued demand for data engineering, SRE/DevOps, and more and more demand for cloud expertise. Firms whose systems are not cloud based are jumping in with both feet to realize cost savings and flexibility. Operations are investing heavily in technology to automate processes (BPA) and modernize systems. These efforts are driven by cost benefits, the risks of old technology (see Citi’s mistaken payment of $900M), and the competition from FinTech.

Where the Action is in Banking IT

Reduced risk taking and the rise of FinTech have changed where the action is in investment banking IT. Trading systems are taking a backseat to the reinvention of the modern, unbundled, financial eco-system. CBInsights .com wrote Unbundling of Bank of America. In a picture:

unbundle BofA.png

Goldman has built what is calls “a treasury of the future.” We are seeing every bank engaged in rearchitecting their Payments systems to avoid being left behind. Much of our recent work for the banks has been focused in these areas. While banks have competition from FinTech on my flanks, unbundling adds complexity to the user experience. The nimbler traditional banks may well come out on top.

The Future - DeFi

DeFi stands for “decentralized finance.” Jump Trading has just announced their involvement in something called Pyth Network. The objectives include, "allowing the raw material of very high performance, very precise market data to be injected into smart contracts that were written using these protocols." I could chase links and read about blockchain technology and smart contracts for days. These are clearly important trends. BTW, pretty cool that Jump, a highly secretive firm, has a podcast.

Data Engineering

Data engineering has been the story in the quantitative development space for the past several years. Two Sigma’s CTO gives a good perspective on this area and how good data engineering has a multiplier effect. If you’re interested, David Siegel, Chairman of Two Sigma, opines on whether we are using technology to build the world that we want.

OS-Climate

Goldman joins with Linux Foundation in an interesting technical development as momentum grows for ESG investment.

Current Priorities

FinTech

Most in Demand: Distributed Systems/Micro Services, Data Engineering, DevOps

·        Full-stack engineer - Python/Javascript – early stage startup – equity position

·        Distributed Systems Engineer - Go, Kafka (Go experience not required)

·        Senior full-stack Engineer - Typescript, React, Go, Kafka

·        Senior Data Engineer - Python, SQL, Go, Postgres, Kafka

·        Data Engineer – Data Ops – Python, SQL, Go, Postgres, Kafka

Buy Side

Most in Demand: C++, Python, Data Engineering, DevOps

·        Data Engineer – C#, SQL

·        SRE - Trading Operations Engineer/Support (Princeton)

·        Data Engineer (Princeton)

·        Research Engineer (Princeton)

·        Research Scientist (Princeton)

·        Machine Learning Researcher (Princeton)

·        Javascript/ReactJS UI Engineer

·        Equity Risk C++ Engineer

·        Fixed Income eTrading Java engineer

·        Geneva SRE/Support, SRE/DevOps, QA – 3 roles

·        Cloud DevOps Engineer

·        CorpTech full-stack Engineer – C#, Javascript/Angular

·        Fixed Income Risk/Pricing/P&L - Java or C# Financial Engineers – (Newport Beach, CA)

·        C++ Engineer – eTrading platform

·        Java Engineer – post-trade systems

·        On Desk Mortgage Tech Lead – Python, KDB (prior knowledge not required)

·        Market Data C++ Engineer

·        Mid-senior Real-time Java Developer – trading systems

·        Mid-senior Data Engineer – Python, SQL

·        QuantDev Portfolio Solutions – C++, Python

·        QuantDev Fixed Income – C++

·        Commodities Data Engineer – Python

·        Commodities Platform Engineer – Python

·        Fixed Income QuantDev Lead – Rates/Mortgages/FX – C++

·        Fixed Income QuantDev Lead – Linear Rates – C++

·        Credit Platform Engineer – C++

·        Credit Platform SRE

·        Credit QuantDev – Equity Vol – C++

·        Credit QuantDev – Credit – C++

·        Regulatory Reporting – python, SQL w/ Reg or Trade Lifecycle experience

·        Front-office post-trade – Java or C++

·        Post-trade Engineering Business Manager

Sell Side

Most in Demand: Java, DevOps, Data Engineering, Big Data – Diversity

·        ED: Business Process Transformation (Process & Task Mining) Lead

·        App Dev, Business Process Transformation (Process & Task Mining)

·        ED: Semantic and Graph Technology - Application Development Lead

·        App Dev, Semantic and Graph Technology

·        ED: Payments IT Tech Lead

·        Java Engineers – many flavors, FTE and Contract

·        VP: Rates eTrading Sr Java

·        ED: Quantitative Risk Analyst – Hedge Fund Risk

·        SRE

·        VP: Technical Delivery Manager – Loans Controllers – rare, non-coding lead role

·        C#/Angular – Contract, Atlanta, GA

·        KDB Developer, Trade post-execution

·        VP: QuantDev: Quantitative Investment Strats (QIS)

·        Assoc/VP: Java Data Engineering – Dallas

·        VP: SRE – NYC, Dallas, Salt Lake City

·        ED: Global Head of Cloud Engineering

·        VP: Senior Cloud Engineer

·        VP/ED: QuantDev FICC Systematic Market Making

·        VP/ED: QuantDev FX Systematic Market Making

·        VP/ED: QuantDev Fundamental Equity Strats

·        VP/Contract: QuantDev IRSwaps Pricing – Java

·        VP/Contract: Realtime Java - Risk

·        VP/Contract: Fixed Income eTrading Java engineer

Contract

We now send out a weekly overview of contract opportunities. If you do not currently receive this listing, please let us know, and we will add you to the distribution.

PETER'S Q4 2019 MARKET REPORT

2019 Q4 Summary

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Q4 has been an interesting one for us. Despite a challenging overall environment, we remain extremely busy with no shortage of jobs to fill. While most banks continue to reduce headcount, some firms have reprioritized technology hiring and continue to seek talented technologists. In fact, we’ve seen salaries rising dramatically for top people this year, especially juniors. We’ve even had reports of salaries topping 7 figures at the top funds for individual contributors.

It’s notable that Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, two firms that generally parallel each other, are moving in opposite directions. Goldman is aggressively hiring engineers, while Morgan Stanley just announced 1500 layoffs with IT having been particularly hard hit.

The competition between banks, hedge funds, and technology companies for top people continues apace and is intensifying. Amazon may have pulled out of HQ2, but it recently announced plans to open a new office in New York. Google will add 7k jobs over the next decade, and you don’t have to do much Googling to find many other companies expanding hiring plans in NYC.

Overall the job market is strong, but if you’re in the market, the skills to polish are software engineering (hello LeetCode), not bond math.

Best Workplaces for Innovation

A common priority among the people I talk to is working at an innovative company and exposure to new technologies. Congratulations to Morgan Stanley for making Fast Company’s list of The 50 best workplaces for innovators.

It’s also worth nothing that Goldman is innovating as well. The build out of the  Marquee platform is a significant priority, and the firm has embraced open source for one of its key platforms.

Opportunity in DevOps/SRE

The Stack Overflow 2019 Developer Survey is full of interesting information. One trend visible in the data and consistent with the needs of our clients is the demand for DevOps/SRE professionals. That demand is easily visible in the salary data. Note that DevOps is not ad hoc systems support. Google describes it as follows:

By “systems engineering,” we mean a discipline that takes a holistic approach to the connections between distinct software systems or services rather than either (1) the internals of how to build a piece of software, where software engineering has tended to concentrate as a field, or (2) how software artifacts are deployed onto specific hardware, which has been the historic domain of system administration. Instead, systems engineers view the collection of individual pieces, which may be built by many separate product development teams, as a whole with properties distinct from its components. SEs tend to focus on how to monitor services, identify and remove bottlenecks, manage and balance connections, handle data replication, ensure data resiliency, and so on.

And here's what Google looks for when Hiring Site Reliability Engineers.

There’s a real financial opportunity here for good engineers who are having a hard time cracking the top firms. These roles, requiring good dev skills coupled with an investigative mind-set and overall knowledge of systems, can be highly lucrative.

Real Industry Salary Data

I had a fun time playing with this salary data from publicly available H-1B filings. Although the data is limited to base salaries, we can draw some interesting conclusions. Note below includes NY data only:

Salary1.jpg

Base salaries rising steadily

Salary2.jpg

Citadel is a top payer as advertised (average 2016-2019)

There’s been exceptional growth at Two Sigma and Tower Research. Tower has had some challenges this year resulting in a significant layoff a couple of months ago.

Salary3.jpg

Finally, here are the figures for the current year (through September)

Current Priorities

Note that some of the listings have been present for some time. These companies continue to hire, often looking for similar profiles.

FinTech

  • Lead Data Engineer – FinTech startup, growing quickly

  • Go/AWS/Javascript Engineer – FinTech startup, growing quickly

  • Numerate Python Developer/Strat – Successful Fintech past startup phase

  • Python Engineer – Trading systems

  • Java Engineer – Credit Fixed Income eTrading

Buy Side

  • Lead Convertibles QuantDev – C++/Python/Fixed Income or Equity exp - Leading HF

  • Dev Manager – Monitoring – Leading HF

  • Lead Engineer/Architect – Monitoring – Leading HF

  • Dev Manager – Reporting – Leading HF

  • Lead Engineer/Architect – Reporting – Leading HF

  • Team Lead Data Engineer – python/C++/Spark/Hadoop – Equities – Leading HF

  • Lead C++ Engineer – Fixed Income Market Making – Leading HF

  • Data Science QuantDev – Python - Startup asset manager

  • SRE – Leading HF

  • Java/Python Developer – Leading HF – Compliance Technology

  • Javascript/ReactJS Developer – Market data front-end – Large HF startup

  • Data Developer – Security Master SME – Leading HF

  • Data Developer – Scraping/Cleaning/Storing – Leading HF

  • Python Middleware Developer – Leading HF

  • DevOps - Kubernetes, containerization – Mid-size HF

  • Data Engineer – python/Spark/Hadoop – Commodities – Leading HF - Greenwich

  • Data Engineer – python/C++/Spark/Hadoop – Credit – Leading HF

  • Data Engineer – python/Java/Spark/Hadoop – Data Platform – Leading HF

  • QuantDev – C++/python - Fixed Income – Rates - Leading HF

  • C++ Engineer – Fixed Income Market Making – Leading HF

  • UI Engineer – React/Angular/Reduc/Node.js - Fixed Income Market Making – Leading HF

  • Low latency C++ Engineer – cross asset - Leading HF

  • Senior System Distributed Data Engineer – Cassandra/Kafka/Cloud/Big Data – Leading HF

  • Quantitative Research – Leading HF

  • Quantitative Research Engineering – Leading HF

  • Java Engineer – Trade Flow – Leading HF

  • Data Engineer – SQL Server, C#, MongoDB/Spark – Healthcare hedge fund / VC

  • Data Scientist - Python, SQL, R, C#, ML – Healthcare hedge fund / VC

  • Junior C#/ASP.Net DevOps developer – Healthcare hedge fund / VC

  • Systems Administrator – Princeton location

Sell Side

  • Java full-stack Developer – Fixed Income eTrading Strategies – leading IB

  • Java Developer – Credit Trading – leading IB

  • Java Developer – Securities Lending – leading IB

  • Java Developer – Loans Servicing – leading IB

  • Java Developer – Collateral management/optimization – leading IB

  • C++ - Mid-Senior Equity ETrading Platform Developer – leading IB

  • Python Developer - Equity eTrading Tooling and Instrumentation – leading IB

  • SRE – Equity eTrading – leading IB

  • DevOps – Runtime Platforms – leading IB

  • Javascript/ReactJS Developer – Strategic platforms – leading IB

  • Quant/Strat – Equity Fundamental Strategies – leading IB

And many others.