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It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

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Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#191

Post by oarsinsync »

barrkel wrote: post #184
wan23 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not - you'd be surprised how low the the title of "Vice President" is in finance companies.

VP of Engineering isn't as devalued as VP of Sales even in companies where a couple of years of experience gets you VP. Subject matters.

I know people who are less than 5 years into their first jobs from graduation who are VPs in Engineering, in financial firms in London (City) and New York (Wall Street). Organisation/culture/industry matters more than subject, I think.

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#192

Post by megy »

samstave wrote: post #151
organsnyder wrote: post #9

I work for a large healthcare system, and the "we're not a tech company" line is often heard. At many levels, I agree—we're in the business of delivering healthy outcomes to our communities, so we need to make sure that efforts across the enterprise support that—but it is often applied in ways that stifle us from delivering what we feel would be the most impactful and cost-effective solutions. I like to respond that…

> "I like to respond that Netflix isn't a tech company, either—they're in the business of delivering entertainment." knowing multiple people from netflix; this is literally a very-uninformed comment... Much of what you even KNOW about cloud-computing, spot markets, streaming, CDNs, etc was pioneered by netflix. They are secretive, but innovative as heck. So, your comment is a big NOPE.

Wow, I think you missed his point entirely.

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#193

Post by _raoulcousins »

organsnyder wrote: post #9

I work for a large healthcare system, and the "we're not a tech company" line is often heard. At many levels, I agree—we're in the business of delivering healthy outcomes to our communities, so we need to make sure that efforts across the enterprise support that—but it is often applied in ways that stifle us from delivering what we feel would be the most impactful and cost-effective solutions. I like to respond that…

My employer uses the line to justify paying developers below market wages.

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#195

Post by Spooky23 »

hamstercat wrote: post #138
shreyanshd wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in technology for an investment bank and i hear “we are not a technology company” every quarter. Ironically, the tech we develop is a major factor, if not the only factor, for revenue. My motivation is instantly shattered when i hear that.

I used to work in another financial-related company and "IT is a cost not a revenue center" was thrown around as often as possible. Raise, promotion, formation, a computer made in this decade, anything really would get us that answer. Not only from my boss, but from the IT's top director in various meetings and one-on-one. I used to find it highly frustrating and unfair given that the company would cease to exists wi…

It’s funny that in the .gov space, I’ve seen management in agencies ranging from corrections to taxation to social services envision themselves as software companies, because it made sense. Every dollar invested in strategic tech produces $3-10 in outcome.

Ironically, the orgs responsible for technology “get it” the least, as they are in the business of ITIL bullshit and order filling. IT bureaucracy will spend $10,000 to save $0.10.

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#196

Post by nostrademons »

hamstercat wrote: post #138
shreyanshd wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in technology for an investment bank and i hear “we are not a technology company” every quarter. Ironically, the tech we develop is a major factor, if not the only factor, for revenue. My motivation is instantly shattered when i hear that.

I used to work in another financial-related company and "IT is a cost not a revenue center" was thrown around as often as possible. Raise, promotion, formation, a computer made in this decade, anything really would get us that answer. Not only from my boss, but from the IT's top director in various meetings and one-on-one. I used to find it highly frustrating and unfair given that the company would cease to exists wi…

The old "We are a tech company, we just happen to do retail/advertising/communication/movies/hospitality/transportation/payments better than you idiots" seems to be working pretty well for Amazon/Google/Facebook/Netflix/AirBnB/Uber/Lyft/Stripe.

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#197

Post by denimnerd »

djtriptych wrote: post #86

I was just at a dev mixer and ran into an engineer at Bank of America. He told me they have 5000 Python developers on staff. I almost fell out of my chair - never would have guessed it. I know there's competition for top talent in NYC, but that's still a surprising number.

There's 100k IT workers at BofA.

The new software engineering stack is JIRA, bitbucket, Ansible, Jenkins, Artifactory, Sonar, etc. Every team is being trained on SAFe. Aka the executives choice for "agile" etc

Also the working areas are being transformed from full height or quarter height cubes to open offices where employees no longer have a laptop and use a thinclient attached to standing desks. This is a dream for information security team but personally I hate it as I spent 2-3 hours working from home every day and the rest in the office. I don't want to develop though a windows GUI in the browser :/

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#198

Post by zokier »

bunderbunder wrote: post #148
shreyanshd wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in technology for an investment bank and i hear “we are not a technology company” every quarter. Ironically, the tech we develop is a major factor, if not the only factor, for revenue. My motivation is instantly shattered when i hear that.

Funny, I go the other way, somewhat. Last time I was interviewing for jobs, one line I heard from a whole lot of financial companies was, "We like to think of ourselves as more of a tech company than a bank." It's an instant turn-off for me when I hear something like that. These are companies that should be thinking of tech as a means to an end, and not an end in an of itself. Even when I worked at a major software v…

Its kinda fashionable to say such things, I'd think its natural that they do that especially when trying to get good tech people in (I presuming here). Bigger question i8s how far beyond the interview that sentiment truly goes.

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#199

Post by golemiprague »

hamstercat wrote: post #138
shreyanshd wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in technology for an investment bank and i hear “we are not a technology company” every quarter. Ironically, the tech we develop is a major factor, if not the only factor, for revenue. My motivation is instantly shattered when i hear that.

I used to work in another financial-related company and "IT is a cost not a revenue center" was thrown around as often as possible. Raise, promotion, formation, a computer made in this decade, anything really would get us that answer. Not only from my boss, but from the IT's top director in various meetings and one-on-one. I used to find it highly frustrating and unfair given that the company would cease to exists wi…

Every company needs tech, it doesn't make every company to a tech company. Where does the line go?

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#200

Post by golemiprague »

oblio wrote: post #37
wafflesraccoon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is the biggest advertising company? Google?

Unless something changed recently, I believe that $95bn of advertising revenue makes them the biggest advertising company in the world :)

They are the medium, not the advertising company, the same way a tv channel is the medium, not the advertising company. WPP, Omnicom, Dentsu, those are advertising companies. You are conflating here two different things.
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