Anyone in Finance / Investment Banking?

[desjardins]

@craz_eddy

disclaimer: this is just my opinion and based on my own anecdotal experiences

unless you work for Google/Facebook/Amazon/Netflix or somewhere on that level I think a young developer should be looking to job hop every 2 years or so. As long as you are learning new things and taking on increasing challenges I don't think anyone will look down on a developer moving around that much. Just be able to explain why you felt you had to bounce. It rarely comes up when I interview but I usually just say I'm looking for a more challenging position. Once you get more senior this could change as you should begin to develop greater domain expertise. But before 30? Def job hop.

Job hopping is the easiest way to get pay increases and it can expose you to a lot of different tech stacks. For example I've used almost every version control (svn, mercurial, git) , developed on both Oracle and Sql Server, done waterfall/agile/and TDD, and have used ant/maven/and gradle build scripts on command line and Jenkins automated builds I set up. That's just in the last 4 yrs worth of jobs.. If I stayed at the same place I wouldn't have all those experiences and couldn't put them on my resume or speak to them from a real world production perspective etc

Only way I see job hopping being a bad look is if you are only staying at places for like 3-4 months. Or if you are job hopping to avoid getting fired (I worked with dudes who did this and caked but it will only last so long)

As far as github and outside projects....i don't have any worth sharing, only lil tutorials and stuff like that are on my github. I'm too busy working. It's 9pm east coast time and i'm about to build some apache camel routes for an integration project i'm working on right now. this is for research purposes and i could put it on github i guess but i'm not pressed. as you can tell from this reply i work mainly in enterprisey stacks. hiring managers who contact me are mainly looking for real world experience and interview competence for the most part. but it could be much different on the west coast in the start up space i imagine or if you don't have that much real world experience. (also it's possible hiring managers are tossing my resume in the trash because i don't have a github url on it.....but i can't tell judging by the amount of interest i get when i'm on the market)

 

[L&HH]

If I was looking for black engineers like u. Where would I look? How much would I have to pay them?

If you're in the northeast, there's a NSBE conference in Boston coming up that will have some programmers. I went to the one in Nashville in 2014 and there were a number of companies there poaching talent. There's also hackathons that happen at almost every major university/region these days. If you're really serious, I've got a couple close friends who graduated from M.I.T. M.I.T has like an informal non-greek "fraternity" for their black students called Chocolate City. I wouldn't be opposed to making phone calls and getting the word out to them for your company. Ya'll paying for headhunters?

 

[Warren Moon]

If you're in the northeast, there's a NSBE conference in Boston coming up that will have some programmers. I went to the one in Nashville in 2014 and there were a number of companies there poaching talent. There's also hackathons that happen at almost every major university/region these days. If you're really serious, I've got a couple close friends who graduated from M.I.T. M.I.T has like an informal non-greek "fraternity" for their black students called Chocolate City. I wouldn't be opposed to making phone calls and getting the word out to them for your company. Ya'll paying for headhunters?

I'll send u a pm.

 

[root_eruditorium_org]

@craz_eddy

disclaimer: this is just my opinion and based on my own anecdotal experiences

unless you work for Google/Facebook/Amazon/Netflix or somewhere on that level I think a young developer should be looking to job hop every 2 years or so. As long as you are learning new things and taking on increasing challenges I don't think anyone will look down on a developer moving around that much. Just be able to explain why you felt you had to bounce. It rarely comes up when I interview but I usually just say I'm looking for a more challenging position. Once you get more senior this could change as you should begin to develop greater domain expertise. But before 30? Def job hop.

Job hopping is the easiest way to get pay increases and it can expose you to a lot of different tech stacks. For example I've used almost every version control (svn, mercurial, git) , developed on both Oracle and Sql Server, done waterfall/agile/and TDD, and have used ant/maven/and gradle build scripts on command line and Jenkins automated builds I set up. That's just in the last 4 yrs worth of jobs.. If I stayed at the same place I wouldn't have all those experiences and couldn't put them on my resume or speak to them from a real world production perspective etc

Only way I see job hopping being a bad look is if you are only staying at places for like 3-4 months. Or if you are job hopping to avoid getting fired (I worked with dudes who did this and caked but it will only last so long)

As far as github and outside projects....i don't have any worth sharing, only lil tutorials and stuff like that are on my github. I'm too busy working. It's 9pm east coast time and i'm about to build some apache camel routes for an integration project i'm working on right now. this is for research purposes and i could put it on github i guess but i'm not pressed. as you can tell from this reply i work mainly in enterprisey stacks. hiring managers who contact me are mainly looking for real world experience and interview competence for the most part. but it could be much different on the west coast in the start up space i imagine or if you don't have that much real world experience. (also it's possible hiring managers are tossing my resume in the trash because i don't have a github url on it.....but i can't tell judging by the amount of interest i get when i'm on the market)

Hey man, I appreciate the breakdown. I really hate the place I'm working at now because everything is so backwards, and the other developer I'm working with haas stayed there 10+ years and honestly he kind of sucks. I've set a deadline for August 2016 to be outta this depressing ass place. Thanks a lot for the breakdown. It's funny because everybody else I've talked to pretty much gave me the same advice, although there's this one guy who said he wouldn't advise a young dev like me to stick in a single place for more than a year, which I thought is kind of short.

You are an inspiration bro, didn't know there was devs on the coli getting it in like that lol. I'll be pm'ing you from time to time.

 

[root_eruditorium_org]

If you're in the northeast, there's a NSBE conference in Boston coming up that will have some programmers. I went to the one in Nashville in 2014 and there were a number of companies there poaching talent. There's also hackathons that happen at almost every major university/region these days. If you're really serious, I've got a couple close friends who graduated from M.I.T. M.I.T has like an informal non-greek "fraternity" for their black students called Chocolate City. I wouldn't be opposed to making phone calls and getting the word out to them for your company. Ya'll paying for headhunters?

NSBE nikkas are always serious about their paper. Most serious nikkas on campus.

 

[L&HH]

I'll send u a pm.

alright cool. Also forgot to mention most cities have coding bootcamps, where they teach inspiring programmers how to code in like 3-12 months or something along that timeframe. I can't speak to the quality of the talent but I've read of one here in DC that's like $12k to attend and they have a 90%+ job placement rate with govt, Booz Allen, etc. Linking up with places like that might get you some decent candidates

NSBE nikkas are always serious about their paper. Most serious nikkas on campus.

Yeah, they're in the hardest majors so it just kind of comes with the territory I suppose.

 

[So-Chi]

I'm a financial services professional and it's white dominated, stressful and rewarding. Everyone drinks and/or does drugs.

 

[Dilltastic VolWon(derful)]

To my fellow black bankers. See Yall on top

#blackexcellence

 

[OSUBaneBrowns]

I just got into the investment banking field after doing mortgage servicing for about 8 years. Its very interesting, stressful, and heavy dominated by whites and Asians (at least in my office in Southern California). I like that I get to see how hedge and mutual funds make their money. I hope that this position will be able to help me move into a senior level role within a good organization in 2-3 years .

 

[Warren Moon]

I just got into the investment banking field after doing mortgage servicing for about 8 years. Its very interesting, stressful, and heavy dominated by whites and Asians (at least in my office in Southern California). I like that I get to see how hedge and mutual funds make their money. I hope that this position will be able to help me move into a senior level role within a good organization in 2-3 years .

What's the job u got npw

 

[OSUBaneBrowns]

What's the job u got npw

Associate at a investment custodian firm. I send margin calls to brokers, process OTC trades and do daily reporting to investors. It an entry level role into the asset management field.

 

[Stromae]

Do any of you guys do/know someone who is a trader, more specifically a commodities trader? Would like to hear how you got to that position.

After I get my money up, I'm planning on doing a little commodities trading on my own.

 

[godkiller]

I'm looking to get into banking. I'm cold-calling banks at the moment and planning to get my CFA.

Is cold calling banks for jobs worth it? Will a CFA help my credentials when I apply?

 

[godkiller]

Do any of you guys do/know someone who is a trader, more specifically a commodities trader? Would like to hear how you got to that position.

After I get my money up, I'm planning on doing a little commodities trading on my own.

Can't you do commodities trading now? Just do the relevant research (do you want to do fundamental or technical trading?), go to the relevant forums, read up on and play around with a paper trading account until you consistently get a decent return. I'm planning on playing around with commodities because I sense a swing coming soon with Trump's election and thereof. I'll be ready to take advantage of the market (I hope).

 

[MrPentatonic]

I'm a financial services professional and it's white dominated, stressful and rewarding. Everyone drinks and/or does drugs.

What is stressful about it? Workload? High pressure environment?

How long is your typical day & does it ever require you to do extra reading or learning outside of work hours?