Profile: Lehman Brothers IT developer
Q: How long have you worked at Lehman?
A: I've been doing this for around eighteen months. I joined the graduate scheme in 2003 and finished training around nine months ago.
Q: What does an IT developer in the investment banking division do?
A: I work as part of a small team with several other developers, and in partnership with a larger team of developers in New York. A lot of what we do is about sharing information efficiently between bankers and banking groups using large global web applications. For example, each time a banker meets a client he or she enters information about the meeting onto an information sharing system which we help design and maintain. That way if there are lots of people going to visit the same client they all have access to the big picture.
Q: What's the most important thing you've achieved over the last three months?
A: We did some work on a big global system which (I think!) massively upped our standing in the eyes of our colleagues in New York. In the past, the New York team dealt with these large global projects while our smaller team worked on local projects. Now we share the workload back and forth.
Q: Why did you opt to work in banking technology instead of industry or a software house?
A: I get bored easily and I need a challenge, which is great because the work in an investment bank is incredibly varied. A lot of IT companies focus on a very specific area; it's the same in some large companies and even in IT consultancies, where you're stuck doing the same job for a long time. By comparison, Lehman Brothers values diverse experience and encourages staff to gain experience across a broad range of areas.
Q: If you could change one thing about your role, what would it be?
A: I'm struggling with this one! I'm actually pretty happy at the moment. I guess I'd like more responsibilities and some slightly bigger projects to manage.
Q: Where do you see yourself in ten years' time?
Hopefully I'll be at least at project manager level. Maybe I'll even be heading towards becoming a department manager with responsibility for at least one or more development teams.
Q: What do you need to make it in banking IT?
Ensure you have good communication skills: of the people who studied IT with me at university, not many were good communicators and those that were have gone a long way. Also, keep up to date with the latest technologies: banks are always using the most recent developments to gain competitive advantage over their rivals. And make sure you take an interest the business of investment banking. The more you understand about the business side of things, the better you'll do.
