What qualifications and skills do I need for a technology job in a bank?
The qualifications you need for a technology job in banking
You might imagine, with the variety of technology jobs available in finance, that the qualifications you need to get a job there vary rather wildly. You’d be wrong. For the vast majority of tech jobs in finance, you need a computer science degree or a degree in another STEM subject.
If you’re absolutely set on a career in finance, a Master's in Financial Engineering (MFEs) is also a strong option, particularly for data roles. It also opens the door to a potential career in quant finance. Our ranking of financial engineering courses put Baruch College on top, followed closely by Princeton and Carnegie Mellon. École Polytechnique topped the European rankings.
For applied research roles, in areas like AI or quantum computing, you’ll need a PhD, as you’re working on advanced theoretical concepts. A PhD can help for other roles too; banks like to brag to shareholders about the number of PhDs they have, whether or not they know what those PhDs are actually doing.
Additional qualifications for technology are harder to pin down, but depend on what you want to specialize in. You can receive accreditations in areas like AI or cloud infrastructure from software providers like cloud infrastructure firm Snowflake; they’re certainly not compulsory, and you might even earn them as part of an internship, but they can at least be good for showcasing areas of interest. If you’d prefer a more general purpose accreditation, AI firms like Anthropic also have free training modules on how to use their agentic coding tools.
What skills do you need for a banking technology job
Rather obviously, to succeed in an engineering role, you need to know how to code. Ironically, though, you might not be doing much coding on the job; you also need know how to use AI coding tools like Claude Code. Banks are intensely regulated though, which means you need to be able to use these tools in a safe and easily explainable way. Job listings for engineers at JPMorgan demand “understanding of responsible AI use and control expectations in engineering workflows.”
Experience in AI is a given for junior roles. Goldman Sachs CIO Marco Argenti said on a podcast last year that “a lot of the kids coming into Goldman are extremely versed on AI. They’re great prompt engineers.” Petter Kolm, an ex-Goldman quant and director of NYU Courant's mathematics in finance masters, told us that candidates need to engage with AI tools “critically, rather than mechanically.”
You’ll also need experience in a programming language relevant to the job you’re applying for, such as R or Python for a data analysis role. It’s not just about what languages you know, though; you need to demonstrate an ability to use certain technologies in the context of its broader tech stack. Kirsty Tutton, a director at recruitment firm Selby Jennings, previously told us that banks like to know the full tech stack “for each role as opposed to a big list.”
If you don’t have much previous experience, the next-best qualifier for a banking job is arguably your prominence in the open-source sector. By contributing to high-profile open-source projects, especially ones that banks are also involved in, you show ambition while allowing hiring managers to see how your code fits into a broader piece of infrastructure.
Return to our guide to technology jobs in finance.
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