Dan Gallagher’s Blog on IT Careers in Investment Banking

It was interesting to read the findings of a recent survey that spreadsheet development has increased over the past two years. These findings are not surprising when you see the salaries of VBA developers, however it is interesting to read that middle, back and front office users are using spreadsheets in anger. For the most part we see VBA developers with derivative experience in high demand. They spend their day integrating new products and building tools for the desks. Along with this they are also heavily involved in risk management and running p&l calculations.  

The main reason for the surge in spreadsheet use is the increase in new derivative instruments and structured products being traded on the global markets. Traders and desk managers alike will use spreadsheets to model, develop and trade these new instruments that cannot be handled by existing applications. If you are an Excel VBA developer and have decent product knowledge around derivatives, structured products or any financial product for that matter give me a call. I have quite a few managers who are looking for good people to sit with the traders and build trading tools. This is also a great time for VBA developers looking to move from the middle to front office.