Founding a startup with zero revenue is better than working for Goldman Sachs

Re:Founding a startup with zero revenue is better than worki... by noname123 on Tuesday September 14, 2010 @03:39PM (#1691963)

That's cool. I'm surprised you say that finance always takes a backseat to writing amazing code, though.

In my experience, traders don't want cool new snazzy Google Wave. They want Excel. They don't want cool new Web 2.0 streaming quotes/risk calculations/portfolio calculations, they want VBA macros in Excel.

Even if you are working in actual trading/strategy area and write up your backtester with Python. They want your P/L in Excel. To implement the strategy though, they want it in C++.

Wall Street: Excel for life!

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Re:Founding a startup with zero revenue is better than worki... by VolatileVoid on Tuesday September 14, 2010 @04:37PM (#1692206)

Don't confuse "amazing code" with "snazzy technology" (although we do some pretty snazzy stuff).

Also not sure about other places, but Excel usage is frowned upon here, at least on the trading desks that I support.

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Re:Founding a startup with zero revenue is better than worki... by noname123 on Tuesday September 14, 2010 @06:11PM (#1692529)

Want to get into details as to what kind of "snazzy technology" or "amazing code" you guys are involved in? You don't have to give me corporate espionage secrets, just vague general topic.

Is it a flashy OMS/EMS/reporting/risk/quotes front-end? What kind of technical problems do you guys encounter? In terms of concurrency, security, message processing, bandwidth/latency? What kind of business problems do you guys encounter? In terms of smart-routing, risk calculations and compliance. Just curious what programmers in GS are generally involved in.

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Re:Founding a startup with zero revenue is better than worki... by ezl on Tuesday September 14, 2010 @05:39PM (#1692426)

Rare and refreshing. Too many hours of my life have been spent hacking broken Excel spreadsheets with recorded macros.

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Re:Founding a startup with zero revenue is better than worki... by alforreca on Tuesday September 14, 2010 @04:38PM (#1692207)

Yes. Old = good. New = bad. Tech in finance is about efficiency. Everything else does not matter. The GUIs are usually atrocious. Traders don't care, as long as they make money. Excel is abused beyond belief and there is a whole cottage industry around Excel plug-ins. A good VBA programmer can command a salary as large as a C++ hot-shot. Sad.

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