It apparently didn't occur to David that the reason why the code in banks suck might be because they don't actually employ "the very best".
I live in London, arguably the current world financial capital, but I'd have to be fairly desperate to work for a bank. (Not suggesting I'm the very best, of course, but rather taking banker money is like being a whore.)
Two very capable friend of mine went from Game Development to working in different Banks/Trading Houses in London. They both told horror stories of:
- Correcting the interviewer on C++ intricacies IN the interview.
- Very poor process of dev/test/release cycles
- Management of 'uptime' by having c++ devs on call 24/7 with Limo's, hotel rooms etc but no thought to proper testing, regression or postmortem.
- Managers that managed by fear and intimidation
- People who were clearly there because they were the only ones who could understand the shambles of code they'd written and were paid astronomically to not leave. In general they were mathematicians who were presumably great at maths and poor at engineering software.
While they were both very good and have moved on to more interesting ventures they earned more in a few years of pain then they would have in 20 years of game development so it was worth it for them.
> rather taking banker money is like being a whore
What if you're a barber who cuts a banker's hair, is that "like being a whore?" What if you sell software to a banker, or you're a nanny for the children of a banker? Also: do you have any respect for actual women who engage in prostitution?
The other jobs you mention have different power relations compared to the employee / employer relationship, and it's the dynamics of that relationship in investment banks, and their culture, that disgusts me.
Well "illegal prostitution" certainly brings about things that negatively affect communities, but that's not the point I was making, nor the question I was asking you.
You said you have no respect for the WOMEN who engage in prostitution. Why?
My point about drug dealers is that I can see having no respect for the person that deals drugs as they themselves produce harm (they could sell to kids).
antiterra said it better than I could, but I had to downvote you. We're used to techie snobbishness all the time, but calling people whores for working in one sector instead of another is not only stupidly arrogant, it's offensive.
Would it be whoring if you took money from Zynga instead? Groupon? Facebook? Yelp? Or any number of other disreputable companies that have engaged in allegedly immoral/illegal behavior?
It's to do with the attitude of people in banking specifically; that people are easily controlled with money, and those with the most money have the most power. And that's why I brought up prostitution in such a crude way; because it is a power relation that cuts through to things that make us human. It's hard work for the women involved in prostitution to mask that, to retain humanity in the face of their job, as intimate and naked as it is. Working for a banker, with their mindset and contempt for people, feels analogous - not quite as bad, but analogous.
I would say that programmers that have a choice will work on anything but banking software. And it's most likely that talented programmers will be driven by passion and not by money.
"The technology people employed at these companies are considered to be the very best..."
Who considers these people 'the very best'? Compsci majors? The hiring manager? Of course people in that sector are going to say "we only hire the best", but at best they're only hiring the best who bother to apply or that can be recruited. Very very very likely "the best" (by other measures) stay the hell away from finance.
In some industries, having extreme expertise with specific algorithms and other very deep-knowledge of specific business rules coupled with top-notch programming skills is going to be required for some tasks. Outside of that, by and large, superhuman math/algo skills aren't needed as much as other broader skill sets (inter-departmental relations, listening, etc).
It's the mentality of the financial sector: If you spend the most money, you are going to get the very best. If you earn the most money, you are the best. They assume that because they pay more than anybody else, they obviously must have the best talent. It's probably unfathomable to a lot of these people that there are motivations for developers other than financial ones.
Agreed, the programmers I know that work for big banks in London tell me stories about the software culture there. From what I can make out, their projects suck just as bad as most other enterprisey efforts in large firms, but are bigger, with more shouting, and more Machiavellian management.
I live in London, arguably the current world financial capital, but I'd have to be fairly desperate to work for a bank. (Not suggesting I'm the very best, of course, but rather taking banker money is like being a whore.)