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.
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.
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:
· Alan Todtenkopf (sabbatical)
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.