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by hguhghuff 2839 days ago
Banks treat IT systems as of no value, they outsource overseas, they seriously think any developer brain is the same as any other.

Banks treat development as just like call centers... they know they have to pay for warm bodies, any warm body will do.

2 comments

Yeah, I've worked in a bank like that.

As long as you had a CS degree, no matter what uni, no matter the grades, your experience, and if you were breathing during the interview they would hire you.

A mate of mine worked for a large bank in the UK, and his experiences were different to this. One of the managers was Oxbridge educated, so they almost exclusively hired CS grads from Oxford and Cambridge. In their mind, they were the cream of the crop, and hiring the "best" graduates meant they'd have the best IT tools. I say "almost" because he managed one team, and he went into this persons team after his projects were wound down.

He joined a team where managers ruled supreme, and while many of the developers were good, they were probably worse than devs on the other teams. Managers were given a budget, and ultimately they didn't care if software was delivered without any testing if the financial risk wasn't that great. This led to developers following orders and rushing to complete stuff with frightening bugs, deployed systems that didn't match source control, etc.

It's a different process, but it seemed to be the same outcome. They hired top-tier graduates, but taught them nothing, and put them under enough constraints that it didn't matter who they hired. They were always going to deliver absolute shit.

Not all banks are the same. Which is why the likes of Revolut and N26 and all the new tech banks are disrupting the market. PDS2 (New EU legislation that mandates banks open their APIs) will likely dominate.

Other banks are paying for their tech sins with technical debt -- paying Cobol devs ludicrious money because there is no one else.

Can't see traditional banks with this attitude of placing bodies in seats surviving long term.