WSO has helped me quite a bit. I've actually met one of my closest friends here on WSO and met a lot of other great people along the way. I've recently changed careers and happy to answer questions about the general direction of switching careers (which has its own nuances and concerns off its own), questions about tech (I'm in the engineering department), or anything else I can help with and answer without completely giving my identity away.
My tech abilities center around cloud computing, serverless technology, distributed systems, that type of stuff.
What were you doing on the RE side? and what made you leave?
I was working at an RE Dev firm with their GC arm. I left because I really was not happy with my life and career trajectory. I did not like working on the GC side because it just did not fit my personality. I'm an outgoing introvert, so working in a loud environment with bulldozers and jackhammers all around me made it hard to focus.
I also discovered I love programming, so I saw more of a future in that when I started getting decent at algo challenges
Did you have any background in programming prior to getting to the real world? Or did you teach yourself?
Are you able to see some of your skills in RE translate over to this role in tech?
Just soft skills, none of my technical skills applied to writing code.
I will say that my ability to communicate with people of varying technical knowledge helps a lot. Being able to nerd out on some obscure technologies and being able to speak to other team members who haven't written a single line of code definitely helps.
With the kind of work you are doing specifically, cloud computing, serverless technology, etc., was this a space you were specifically targeting? Was data science or analysis of interest for you? I've seen a number of roles come up with companies tied to finance that have focused on candidates who have knowledge and experience in finance concepts, and have some programming skills. I've been a little bit interested in data science myself because I've seen people quit their dead-end jobs, go to bootcamps in data science and end up in better roles.
Additionally, how is the work culture and hours you put in?
Good question, so initially I had an idea of going into a Data Science role without fully understanding the space. I think it is very interesting, but my understanding is I'd need to shore up my math knowledge quite a bit more. I learned languages that lend themselves more to fast servers essentially, and an extension of that would be getting into the cloud space and diving deeper into that. I've never worked as a Data Scientist so I really can't speak that in depth about it.
I can't speak to data science bootcamps beyond that ads I've seen on social media, but I know a few bootcamp grads. I work with one and he's pretty sharp. I think not all are created equal, but the better ones turn out quality people.
So I work for a company that is finance oriented so I'd imagine the hours are probably worse than most other tech firms. I have friends that work 30ish hours per week. I put in 40-50 hours per week- which is actually pretty comfortable with me. The pay is also comfortable for where I'm at in my life, if you're considering switching your career.
Edit: The work I do specifically is working with a team to create and ensure the reliability of this massive GraphQL API that takes in a lot of data. I specifically am in charge of making sure that system does not fail when deployed into a production environment, which requires me being able to navigate through AWS and the codebase. We have true DevOps Engineers that come in and actually deploy it and configure everything, but I'm the one in that handoff from development to DevOps.
Who is your WSO bestie?
He posts anonymously now. Somewhere above intern and below VP.
What's entry-level pay in fintech and how do interns get involved?
What do you want to do at a FinTech firm? Looks like you’re in prop trading, so I’m not super familiar with the finance track because it can vary so widely.
If you want the tech route, that can change a lot depending on how you define FinTech. I think the low end for a SWE type role would be maybe $90k base, but that’s pretty low. The highest ones would be the hedge fund types who can get $300k+ offers right out of undergrad. Those are some true offers. I think if you know what you’re doing, you can command $120k or higher.
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