Hello.
Banks today have a choice between developing in house their own
systems, or buying ready made systems from IT companies.
Goldmans develops in house mainy applications, and therefore can be
heavily dependent on a small number of programers in charge of a
special project (if they leave the bank, the application has no
support, and most probably a time bomb). It's harder to get top pay at
a bank that uses outside softwares, because you're a disposable
commodity. But even if you find a bank which develops its own apps, it
takes a long time to get to a position where the bank can't afford to
loose you.
An other problem banks are facing is the fact that most traders do not
understand coding, and most coders (even at banks) do not deeply
understand trading. If you manage to get a deep understanding of both
worlds, the $$ will start going your way.
if I were you, I'd take a course a night course on Derivatives, and
apply at a structured products desk. You'll be doing trading of
complex products (like strutured notes, synthetic CMOs, bermudas
options, etc..), very coding and quant intensive. and huge bonuses
too. check http://www.wilmott.com/ for job offfers.
Of course it helps if want to live in london or NY.
good luck
ps: for your specific question, I know that deutsche bank and barclays
develops a lot of its own apps. |
