Upshot — value-creation per head and salary level would rival the high-flying manager roles.
Imagine a highly successful trading shop. Even though the trading profit (tens of millions) is comparable to a bank trading desk with hundreds of IT head count, this trading shop’s core dev team *probably* have a few (up to a few dozen) core developers + some support teams [1] such as QA team, data team, operations team. In contrast, the big bank probably have hundreds of “core” developers.
[1] Sometimes the core teams decide to take on such “peripheral” tasks as market data processing/storage, back testing, network/server set-up if these are deemed central to their value-add.
In the extreme case, I guess a trading shop with tens of millions of profit can make do with a handful of developers. They want just a few top geeks. The resultant efficiency is staggering. I can only imagine what personal qualities they want:
* code reading — my weakness
* tools – https://bintanvictor.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/2-kinds-of-essential-developer-tools-on-wall-st-elsewhere/ * manuals — reading tons of tech info (official or community) very quickly, when a “new” system invariably behave strangely
* local system knowledge
* trouble-shooting — and systematic problem-solving. I feel this largely depends on system knowledge.
* design — it right, and able to adjust it as requirements change * architecture?
* tuning?
* algorithms?
(soft skills:)
* clearly communicate design trade-offs in a difficult discussion * drive to get things done under pressure without cutting corners * teamwork — teamwork to back down when needed to implement a team decision
