It almost seems beside the point to comment on our job market right now, so I’ll keep this to chapter to some relevant observations:
There *is* hiring happening
Systematic hedge funds – mostly – are doing well (but net redemptions are up overall).
Fintech – a mix, but touchless payments anyone? And Fintech’s disintermediation of services is well suited to a pandemic.
Investment Banks – tepid hiring, mostly frozen, some contracting, contract rates significantly down.
Everything is harder
It should be a buyer’s market with layoffs at many startups, companies like Uber, and any number of other firms. However, it is always hard to find good engineers, and the better talent is hunkered down, riding things out.
Interviews are all remote, and while we’ve seen companies interview, offer, and onboard w/o ever meeting in the flesh, it’s hard to make hiring decisions strictly based on video conferences. Companies need to be *really* sure in order to pull the trigger.
Budgets come and budgets go, positions are a moving target as companies adjust to a dynamic landscape with many unknowns.
Even Google has cut hiring.
This too will pass
The Dice jobs report from early in the pandemic has some interesting graphics
Hiring has moved south
DevOps!
The rise in demand for .NET? – not in NYC!
2nd quarter earnings were incredible for the top 2 investment banks: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley. Perhaps this will lead to an uptick in hiring as budgets loosen for critical hires.
Remote anyone? James Gorman CEO of Morgan Stanley commented “We’ve proven we can operate with effectively no footprint.” Working from home several days a week is bound to be the new norm, especially for tech jobs. Here’s the latest with banks having reported fantastic earnings for the most recent “remote” quarter.
But maybe not for Goldman? No way. Goldman even before the pandemic was allowing some remote, and they will do whatever it takes to be competitive for top talent.
Some observations on the effect of COVID-19 on the industry.
You just can’t live w/o coders – banks ramping up technology hires.
Goldman is FinTech
Goldman is more and more becoming a technology company. Marcus Argenti from AWS was a big hire. From the same article:
Underlying this enthusiasm is Goldman's already professed intention of becoming the API provider for all of finance. Argenti sees an opportunity for the firm's APIs to evolve into a business of their own, in much the same way as AWS grew out of Amazon: "There is a clear opportunity for vertical cloud providers to offer more specific services to others in the industry." The intention is for Goldman to offer APIs that allow clients to build their own applications to access platforms like Goldman's risk management capabilities. Goldman will do the "heavy lifting," said Argenti.
COVID-19 Bond
A new angle on sustainable investments – Bank of America issues a COVID-19 Bond.
EQ, MQ, BQ
Here is a must-read Forbes article on factors for success above and beyond IQ. “Research carried out by the Carnegie Institute of Technology shows that 85 percent of your financial success is due to skills in ‘human engineering,’ your personality and ability to communicate, negotiate, and lead.” Yes, you need a very high IQ to be hired by top firms. What many people often do not realize is that you also need to excel in these other areas.
We see this play out every day. If it’s hard for us to reach you, you don’t follow through on your commitments, or you’re late for appointments, we know one thing - you’re not getting hired no matter how smart you are.
Another Take on Top Programming Languages
Good overview w/ job market considered. Here are the languages that the cool kids are using.
Current Priorities
FinTech
Most in Demand: Distributed systems, Data Engineering, DevOps
Data Engineer – Python/Java
Front-end Engineer – Javascript/React/Ember/Vue
Full-stack Engineer – Java/Python/Javascript
Product Engineer – Java/Javascript
DevOps Engineer – Experience supporting large, commercial infrastructure
Back-end Engineer – Go (learn on the job), Kafka, PostgresSQL…
Full-stack Engineer – Go (ditto), Kafka, PostgresSQL…
Software Engineer – Clearing SME – Platform Team – Go (ditto), Kafka, PostgresSQL…
Senior Distributed Systems Engineer - Platform Team - Go (ditto), Kafka, PostgresSQL…
Sales Engineer – Python/Fixed Income Trading systems
Buy Side
Most in Demand: C++, Python, Data Engineering, DevOps
Junior C# Engineer – volatility HF
C#/WPF – Leading Asset Manager - Contract
SQL Server/Sybase Engineer – Contract
Data Engineer – Python, Java – algo HF
Lead Data Engineer – python/RDBMS, NoSQL, Object Databases – Credit Trading – Leading HF
Data Engineer – python/C++/Spark/Hadoop – Credit – Leading HF
Data Engineer – python/Java/Spark/Hadoop – Data Platform – Leading HF
Data Engineer – SQL Server, C#, MongoDB/Spark – Healthcare hedge fund / VC
Senior System Distributed Data Engineer – Cassandra/Kafka/Cloud/Big Data – Leading HF
Lead C++ Performance Engineer – algo HF – C++
Lead C++ Engineer – Fixed Income Market Making – Leading HF
Lead C++ Engineer - Execution – Fixed Income Market Making – Leading HF
Lead C++ Engineer/Architect – Leading HF – C++
C++ Market Data Engineer – Leading HF – C++ (KDB a plus)
C++ Engineer – Leading HF – Electronic Trading Technology
Junior Research Engineer – algo HF - Austin
Quantitative Research – Leading HF
Quantitative Research Engineering – Leading HF – C++
Quant - CRT & non agency residential MBS – algo HF
Quant - CMBS – algo HF
Quant Researcher/Trader - MBS – algo HF – Python/C++/Researcher
Quant Researcher – Execution team – algo HF – Python/C++/Researcher
Research Engineer – Princeton location – PhD preferred
Research Scientist – Princeton location – PhD only
Trader - CMBS – algo HF
SRE/DevOps – Quantitative Systems - Leading HF
Trading Operations Engineer – DevOps – Princeton location
Sell Side
Most in Demand: Java, DevOps, Data Engineering
SRE/DevOps Pipeline (Assoc/VP) – Opportunistic - leading IB – Linux/CICD/Containerization/Etc.
Lead Data Developer/Architect – leading IB – Hadoop/Spark/Scala/Data Eng/Data pipelines
Quant/Strat – Equity Fundamental Strategies – leading IB
SWIFT Payments BA – Java – This is more of a BA/Support role with light java dev
Various Contract Roles
Java
Javascript/Typscript/Node.js
UX/UI Javascript
Python Data Engineer
C#