No. A large majority of trading strategies don't require the low latency that FPGAs help provide.

There is some truth to this statement though, if such a firm is trying to pursue a certain kind of strategy - to compete on latency, some of your business must be in hardware.

Not really. There are only a few financial instruments worldwide where very low latency matters, and there you'd be competing against people who have invested millions in custom transceivers, so it's unlikely FPGA work on a readymade board is really going to make much of a difference.

But like all industries, there are many factors that contribute to success. FPGA work might help improve things a bit even if you're not the best.