Programmers - Finance Industry

[Zip Ped]

Hi,

I am currently working for a company which provides technical services to Government agencies.

I am interested in gaining IT experience in the Financial domain and looking for jobs in and around New York city. I did get an interview call for a Java Developer position with a Hedge Fund. The Hedge Fund was started in 2005, so they are new. I am not quite sure of what Hedge Funds are, or the kind of software development work they do.

So my question is, is it better to continue looking for a Java Developer position with some financial services company? Or should I try to pursue this opportunity as it might give me a break in the financial industry and maybe after gaining some experience, I can move on from there.

If any of the ranchers could advice me on what would be a better approach to get into the financial industry, it would be helpful.

Thanks,
Kailash

[Mark Herschberg]

The good news is the IT labor market in NYC is very hot right now. I know plenty of companies with lots of job openings.

Hedge funds basically invest priate money in the stock market. They use software to create trading models and for compliance requirements.

--Mark

[Ali Hussain]

Introduction to Hedge (finance) has a quick intro about hedging.
[ February 02, 2007: Message edited by: Ali Hussain ]

[Zip Ped]

Thanks Mark and Ali for the information. I did read up on some articles for Hedge Fund.

What my main concern however is the software development part in the financial industry. Most of the Java/J2EE jobs are for production support and extending the existing trading system the companies have already setup. I am not sure whether I should take up these opportunities or continue looking for firms which offer more than what I have mentioned above. If the IT market is good, I believe the ideal thing would be to continuing looking for jobs which offer work on the development front too.

Please let me know your view on this.

[Henry Wong]

Originally posted by Kailash Thiyagarajan:
What my main concern however is the software development part in the financial industry. Most of the Java/J2EE jobs are for production support and extending the existing trading system the companies have already setup. I am not sure whether I should take up these opportunities or continue looking for firms which offer more than what I have mentioned above. If the IT market is good, I believe the ideal thing would be to continuing looking for jobs which offer work on the development front too.

I only partially agree with this. There *are* a ton of jobs related to maintanence, and updating existing systems.

However, there are also a lot of new development too. Some of the stuff, like risk management, program trading, analyst tools, are constantly in development -- and tend to developed in-house because they generally are considered IP.

Henry