Projects of investment banks: is it good or bad for an engineer?

Now in Ukraine there are more and more projects from world-class investment banks. Leading IT companies in Ukraine are becoming increasingly visible in the global market, more and more willing to invest in obtaining international certificates and, as a result of all this, they are becoming increasingly attractive as service providers for the financial industry. In view of this, I would like to understand the main features of such projects in terms of interest in them from the real engineers.

Technology

The basis of banking is stability. Therefore, the main focus is on technologies that have proven themselves from this point of view. Yes, the percentage of cutting-edge technology is not as high as in other industries (e-commerce, for example). However, it is safe to say that decisions that have proven their right to life, sooner or later come here. Only 10 years ago, the use of new-fashioned, at that time, Java in the banking environment was difficult to imagine. But now banking projects are the main employers for Java professionals. However, life does not stand still here: Gigaspaces www.gigaspaces.com , MarkLogic www.marklogic.com today is already real trends that are used quite massively.

Career

Everything is simple here. Just as in other large corporations, a program to increase the share of IT service providers is in full swing at banks. Therefore, from year to year the number of people working for such companies is increasing. And for a person interested in building a career, this is the surest sign that he has found the right employer ;-)
')

Bureaucracy

Well, what can I say: as in any other large organization, it is. But sometimes it not only complicates life, but also makes it easier. It is only necessary to spend a little time to figure out how processes actually work. After that, it is enough just to remember to control them in certain stages, and everything will happen automatically.

Planning and Development Methodologies

The main users are the business units of the bank itself, so the budgets for IT projects are regularly allocated, mastered and increased. Agile practices have already come to the banking industry. Neither SCRUM, nor Kanban are new here. And yesterday's avid "waterfall only" managers have adapted to Agile, and have learned how to use SCRUM boards in order to properly report to the higher management the situation on the projects. Also worth noting is the number of Agile trainings in which banks invest as zealously as they did in PMI.

International teams

Each bank has a whole set of IT service providers in different countries. Therefore, the opportunity to participate in global projects, in which several countries take part at the same time, is practically for everyone. And this means regular business trips - as an opportunity to visit different countries. The travel budget is annual and stable. Yes, and English is the standard for any modern financial project.

Architectural freedom

Despite the conservatism, IT for the bank is not the main source of income. Therefore, they are very open about the fact that IT service providers take decision-making in the architectural aspect. Indeed, to use any Open Source solution will require a number of permissions, but these are only precautions, and, in fact, most rational proposals are accepted. For example, the use of Scala (http://www.scala-lang.org) where it is due to technological benefits.

Standard gentleman's set

What is now included in the standard set of required technologies? In my subjective opinion, the standard (> 80%) set is as follows:
- Java Core
- Spring
- Hibernate
- JMS
- Groovy
- Oracle
- HTML5 / XML / XPath
- Web Services (REST)
- GWT
- BDD / TDD

Security

For example, I have a very positive attitude to the issue of security when it comes to my valuable things, and very negatively when it imposes any restrictions on me. Unfortunately, security and restrictions are interrelated things. And you have to put up with it. Somewhere there are more restrictions, somewhere less. As a rule, now mobile phones at the entrance are no longer taken away, and the cameras above each employee are not hung up. They also learned how to do data masking, and there is no need to work in rooms without windows with upholstered walls made of lead ... But nobody canceled the pin code on the card, and, unfortunately, bring relatives to the workplace (“I'll show you what my monitor is at work ! ”) Also fail.
Virtual machines
Not all projects, but there are such relationship schemes when employees work on virtual machines.
The essence of this solution is that physically all the computers of employees and the server are on the network of the bank itself. This greatly simplifies scalability and information security. And for the developer, it looks like a regular computer. For the organization of such systems using Citrix technology, high-speed dedicated network connection, therefore, with a competent approach to the organization, there are no performance problems. For those who have never come across this - it may sound daunting: "How can I not go to Facebook to read the tape?". But those who have adapted to this, get their benefits: you can not read mail on weekends and holidays, no one will call in the middle of the night to fix something urgently, etc.

Subject area

For some, the financial domain looks less attractive than, say, NASA Spacecraft. This is probably due to the fact that physics for mathematics looks more romantic than economics. However, since there are many projects, it is quite realistic to find a project with less influence of the subject area and with greater technical complexity. And there are enough of these technical difficulties: these are high load mission critical systems, real-time data, and speed requirements for algorithms of varying complexity for processing large collections. Also, now they are increasingly moving away from heavyweight solutions, such as the full J2EE stack, regardless of whether it really is needed there or not. Instead, lightweight technologies, rational decisions and a gradual increase in functionality are made. If any technology is used - it will be used to the place and in full. For the developer, this means a deeper experience and structuring of his knowledge.

Total:

We can say with confidence that there is life in the projects of investment banks! And, after several global financial crises, competition for the client, by increasing the productivity and competence of the IT departments of banks, is rapidly increasing. And along with this - and the volume of banks' investments in its IT infrastructure. Of course, some processes remain specific and always will be, but, in the conditions of constantly growing demands on the work of banking departments, technical complexity is also constantly increasing. And this, in turn, promises a lot of interesting work for real engineers.