Developer moving to UK

I am looking at moving to London in the next few months from New Zealand. I have a bachelor of computer science and just over 4 years full time work exp from some fairly high profile companies. I'm interested in moving into a programming job in the finance sector.

Can anyone give advice on any types of jobs I should be aiming for given that I have little exp in finance but want to learn?

2 Comments
 
Best Response

If you want to see the financial component of your work, I would aim for a front office technology team on the markets or research side of the business. So a system helping to model portfolio risk, or price and generate analytics on a product would be some of the best entry-level programming jobs commonly available out there.

You're going to get a lot of experience- both as a programmer and some in finance- there. It won't feel like you're learning this stuff when you're searching through log files at 3 AM, but you're learning. And after a few years, you'll be qualified for roles in risk management, quant work, research, or trading- ideally through an internal transfer.

You want to be a developer/ build-the-bank guy, not "run-the-bank". At the end of the day, smart developers- not the business analysts or system support staff- are the folks who know what's actually going on with the products and the system and ultimately call the shots within IT. They're the ones who've got the best opportunities to go over to the business side at least in trading/quant research/risk management.

 

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