[spiralpolitik]

Like in any industry there are good teams and bad teams. Working in finance verses working in say social does not automatically make you a bad developer.

Culturally there are two things make finance different. One is that it is a hideously conservative and risk adverse. AS/400's are used because they are well understood, very reliable, and supported by someone other than an attention deficit teenager in a bedroom.

Second is that mainstream finance doesn't see itself as a technology industry. There are areas like quant investment and high frequency trading that are, but most finance companies still look at technology as a line item on the budget rather than the foundation that their business is based on. This is changing slowly (see one) but will mostly likely require an external disruption to push change through any quicker.

[SEJeff]

Entirely agreed on all points. I work in hft and only am in this industry due to the fantastic bleeding edge tech.