Should I learn programming if I want to land a job in finance?
by Ad Min - The financial system is changing dramatically and will do so even more in the near future. This will impact a lot on the type and skills of jobs required by "Wall Street" and any other financial firm really (including fintech startups).
The underlying reason is that financial activity is almost entirely about information and hence as all relevant info is now captured entirely in digital form it is essential to be able to access and work with it using code.
But if you limit yourself to just "coding" you will not get access to some very interesting jobs. You need also the mathematical modeling skills to create models of uncertainty (risk models). The point being that there is not much value in pushing bits around, unless you can extract something useful about the future.
The underlying reason is that financial activity is almost entirely about information and hence as all relevant info is now captured entirely in digital form it is essential to be able to access and work with it using code.
But if you limit yourself to just "coding" you will not get access to some very interesting jobs. You need also the mathematical modeling skills to create models of uncertainty (risk models). The point being that there is not much value in pushing bits around, unless you can extract something useful about the future.