Network engineers coming soon(ish) to the trading floor

This might not be imminent, but one day there are likely to be career opportunities for network engineers on the trading floor. The search for low latency is moving to hardware acceleration, which is propelling engineering roles into the front office.

"Electronic trading is moving into more asset classes, and we're getting to the point that data volumes are so high and software has been optimised to such an extent, that a lot of time is being put into exactly how the network is constructed," says Kevin McPartland, a senior analyst at TABB Group.

Obviously, the use of network engineers within investment banks is nothing new, but they've never been anywhere near the beating heart of the organisation until now.

"A lot of the network engineering work was outsourced," says McPartland. "Now, the front office needs to be acutely aware of how the network works. Quantitative traders, support people and application development staff all need an understanding of it. This opens a whole new realm for network engineers where their jobs are much closer to the bottom line."

So, expect a new type of techie on the trading floor soon, and it might take a new breed of network engineer to adjust to that environment.

"Obviously, it's fast, loud and in-your-face - traits not normally associated with technologists - and they need to be able to do complex, technical work in that environment," says McPartland.