Day in the Life: Daniel Rosengarten, head of structured credit derivatives technology

05:30 My day begins pretty early. I live in Surrey, a leafy county outside London, from which it takes around half an hour to get into the City. When I worked in New York I lived an hour away, so I'm used to commuting. The rail system in the UK is a little less reliable than in the US: when things go wrong there seems to be more downtime. But the seats here are cushioned instead of plastic, so at least I get to sit out the delays in comfort!

07:10 I hop on the train, pop open my laptop, and either do some work or listen to the next audio Japanese lesson.

08:00 I usually arrive at the office at 8:00am. I manage a team of people based in both London and New York who create the technology used to trade and manage the risk associated with credit derivative products. I don't actually sit on the trading floor permanently, but spend plenty of time down there as I have a lot of interaction with the credit derivatives traders and managers.

08.05 The first thing I do is always to check my emails and make sure the systems are running correctly. Once or twice a month there are emails with minor problems to be dealt with. They usually relate to events the night before. Traders in London have a tendency to work later than me, plus Citigroup has credit derivatives traders working five hours behind Greenwich Meantime in New York, so I like to double check to ensure nothing goes wrong in my absence.

08:27 This morning, a trader is complaining that the system has taken an unusually long time to produce a risk report. Credit derivatives are complex products and calculations for the risk of a particular trade, or set of trades, can take all night. But in some cases (such as this), they take even longer. This is a problem because traders need the reports to manage their hedging activities.

In this case, the problem is related to data feeds for today. I'm relieved as this particular feed doesn't directly affect their trading. Resolving it will require a look at the system and the development of a new process that will prevent the fault from happening again.

08:30 We formulate a plan to enhance certain code that will correct the problem and avoid the issue in the future. Traders are then informed. Keeping traders informed of important issues is key to having a smooth-running trading desk.

08:45 The data feed has been corrected and the desk informed.

09:00 I review the latest technology news on several websites including slashdot.com, creditmag.com, wallstreetandtechnology.com, theinquirer.net, and of course efinancialnews.com. This allows me to gain info on new product vendors and hear about the latest developments in the derivatives industry.

09:30 Ensure project plans, development documents and agendas are prepared.

10:00 As well as firefighting and dealing with problems as they arise, my role also involves forward planning and looking at ways of adapting technology to deal with new products, and developing new technologies. This morning I've scheduled a weekly meeting to discuss ways to improve performance of the application.

12:00 I discuss with one of the traders how we can improve the application.

13:00 Review development, testing and deployment documents. Someone drops into my office for career advice.

14:00 New York opens at 2:00pm, so I contact one of my developers to discuss his progress and ensure everything's working correctly.

14:25 I usually wind up eating lunch at 2:25pm, just before the cafeteria closes at 2:30pm. I scurry downstairs and bring food back to my desk. I rarely finish eating because there are always a hundred other things going on, ranging from ad-hoc reports, garnering the right resources and information for the upcoming projects, and ensuring our applications are running smoothly on the desk.

14:30 One of the developers needs some help solving a tricky problem

15:00 Short phone meeting with the global head of credit derivatives in NYC

15:30 Meeting with the head of trading & the head of research to discuss the 'workslate' - a term for our departmental technology strategic roadmap.

16:45 This afternoon I take time to work on pricing a new type of trade. I then schedule its incorporation into the system. This involves working closely with the traders and research team. Structured credit derivatives are complex enough that the management really needs to understand the products and the technology equally well so that highly utilized and successful systems and solutions can be provided.

17:00 Review progress of the development and check the code changes.

18:00 Today I am interviewing a candidate for a Technical Specialist Role. He'd been 'pre-teched' on the phone to see if he had the necessary basic technical background. Today I'm bringing him in for a formal and more in-depth interview . People with actual credit derivatives experience are hard to find so I hope this candidate is as good as he looks on paper. If he is a good fit, the next step would be to have the candidate meet the traders and the rest of the credit derivatives team.

19:15 I review my schedule to see if there is any outstanding work to be done and fill out administrative paperwork

I like to finish around 6:00pm but wind up staying until 8pm when necessary. If issues arise in New York, I often carry on working on them once I get home.

Once a week, I attend an Archery Club. Many years ago I used to do archery and I got back into it a few months back. I'm not hitting too many bull's-eyes yet, but am eternally hopeful. Archery takes a lot of consistency and focus, two qualities with which I hope I am endowed!