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Technology job board eFinancialCareers.com, which is owned by Dice, is seeing a steady uptick in technology jobs for the financial industry. After the economy’s meltdown in 2008 and 2009, it’s taken some time to see recovery in this segment. If you have technology experience in the industry, there are jobs to be had.
Programming skills are way up in terms of demand, especially the C languages with C# being the skill most sought after right now, along with skills in C and C++. In New York City and the metropolitan area, financial technology positions garner 20 percent higher salaries than the general technology population.
The following is an e-mail interview eWEEK conducted on Aug. 4 with Constance Melrose, managing director of eFinancialCareers North America.
How many open technology positions in finance are there?
The demand for technology professionals on Wall Street is growing and has been since March. Recruitment activity for technology professionals is up 24 percent year over year, and today there are about 300 open positions listed on eFinancialCareers for technology professionals. The demand is coming from a wide array of financial services clients including bulge bracket banks, hedge funds, asset managers and consultants and vendors to the industry.
Which regions and cities are seeing the most demand?
It’s no surprise that New York City dominates the open positions, given its status as the capital markets center in the U.S. But we see demand in all the major market centers – Chicago, San Francisco, Boston and Philadelphia.
You say programming skills are in demand, but what kind of financial experience are companies looking for?
At the end of the day, financial services companies are looking for tech professionals with prior experience in the industry because technology enables their firms to get and maintain an edge – to act with speed and conviction.
Building on that unique environment, let’s think about risk management. It’s No. 7 on the list of most-desired experiences of skills. I doubt you would be able to find another industry – where risk management is considered key to a technology professional’s job.
What other skills and job titles are companies looking for in finance?
Demand in almost every sector of Wall Street — such as investment banking, compliance and research – is solid and growing. If you look at tech specifically, outside of the top 10 – we see business analysts and .Net in demand. As banks implement the new regulations recently passed in Washington, technology, risk management and compliance are all areas where banks will continue to bolster their talent.
What about security jobs in finance? What can you tell me about trends there?
Security is always top of mind across technology and that certainly includes Wall Street, but it wasn’t on the top ten lists of skills this go around. We do see demand in the space – this posting is representative of the types of roles we see: http://jobs.efinancialcareers.com/job-4000000000652845.htm
What certifications are important to this industry?
Prior experience in the industry is more important than certifications. After industry experience itself, companies are more interested in marrying tech skills with business education – so we see more requests for technologists with MBAs than specific tech certifications.