Posted in C++ Financial Engineering, Jobs on April 23, 2010

• Lead, manage and mentor a Global Algorithmic Trading Technology team.
• Design, architect, build and deploy a state of the art multi asset Global Algorithmic Trading platform
• Embraces and champions improving the SDLC process by employing and supporting: Metrics, agile/test driven development, short release cycles, resource driven project plans, cross functional communication, QA, transparency into his/her team
• Selects and builds high performing teams, leveraging individual capabilities and strengths.
Establishes vision and goals within the FICOR IT program, driving high performance management, supporting career development and rewarding strong performance
• Maintain existing Algorithmic Trading components
• Manages relationships with the various heads of the trading business to align IT strategy with business strategy
• Identifies, plans, and negotiates for suitable resource levels to meet business objectives, managing conflicts and deadlines.
• Maintains a detailed and current knowledge on the projects within the program; has responsibility for both strategic and tactical initiatives within the program
• Seeks out industry trends and applies extensive capital markets knowledge to ensure best of class solutions

QUALIFICATIONS
• Strong hands-on technical manager / leader with a proven track record
• Knowledge of UNIX/Linux, Programming Languages – C++, Python, Java
• Ability to manage both tactical and strategic projects
• Prior experience with working in and leading a large scale, high performance, distributed, real-time, low latency, load balanced, fault tolerant systems
• Strong business knowledge, clear understanding and prior experience with Algorithmic Trading, Crossing, Smart Routing
• Good understanding and appreciation of overall knowledge of related Electronic Trading components including data dependencies (static, historical statistics)
• Knowledge of other Capital markets products is a plus - Futures, Fixed income
• Detailed understanding of Equities products is a plus (Equities, Options)

Posted in Cisco Networking & IT Security, Jobs on April 23, 2010

Responsibilities involve building network infrastructure, responding to network problems, short and long term project work, and continually driving improvements in network performance.

Experience supporting applications in a Network environment is a must. Prior experience with proprietary trading firms and exchanges is desired. Regular travel to Chicago is required.

Key Responsibilities:
• Work with teammates to drive the design and deployment of new installations of trading systems at exchange collocations
• Design and implement high performance, low latency WAN infrastructure
• Identify and evaluate new technology
• Troubleshoot infrastructure and application performance issues
• Find and improve performance bottlenecks
• Work closely with other parts of the business to identify areas of high opportunity

Key Skills / Attributes:
• Deep understanding of IP networking:
o Switching
o Routing (OSPF, EIGRP, BGP)
o Multicast (IGMP, PIM)
• Expertise with high-performance LAN technology (10 G ethernet, product architecture)
• Expertise with optical WAN technology (SONET, DWDM/CWDM, MPLS)
• Performance analysis and troubleshooting
o Packet capture and analysis
o Tapping and spanning
• Deep understanding of the TCP/IP protocol
• Experience with data center planning and deployment
• Experience with a scripting language such as python or perl
• Experience with the Linux operating system, C/C++, SQL a plus

Posted in Hiring Managers on April 4, 2010

In a March 2010 column in Tech Republic (http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-manager/?p=3113&tag=rbxccnbtr1), Marc Schiller writes that to prepare a Vision of IT for his/her enterprise, the CIO should “network with your peers to learn about their key IT investments. What projects they are protecting no matter what and what projects they are killing. Find out what big investments they’re planning for the next five years and why they’re doing it. Try to understand where their business customers are pushing them and why.” The CIO can then discuss “the potential threats and opportunities depending on your company’s choices and evolving strategy.”

An IT Strategy presentation, Schiller writes (http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-manager/?p=3148&tag=rbxccnbtr1), should contain the IT organization’s: “(1) mandates and scope of services
(2) their organizations and service delivery models, (3) their IT investment portfolios.

“Mandate and Scope of Services
Your strategy must answer the questions that everyone has, ‘What do you do for me? When do I come to you? And how do you fit in with the other IT service providers that work for our company?’”, particularly in a world of business users who use 3rd party IT providers and departmental IT.

“The IT Organization and Service Delivery Model
Most IT leaders make the mistake of thinking that the way to align with the business is to ensure that their specific projects support very specific business goals. The more important alignment is around the basic operating model of the company and how it connects to the operating model of IT. Answer the questions: “How do I get the services I need?” or “How are our IT services aligned to our business?” ”

The IT Investment Portfolio
It’s important to provide a 50,000-foot view into the IT investment portfolio that explains what sits in infrastructure, what sits in shared services, what sits in departmental functions, and what tradeoffs are being made across the company. Doing that helps all the executives understand what compromises they need to make in terms of their consumption of IT services, whether its slower response times or using outsourced service providers for help desk support or upgrading computers faster. This complete view of the IT investment portfolio and the business priorities to which the investments are attached lend tremendous credibility to the IT leader.

The Business Presentation
Provides an overview of the IT services that the corporation as a whole, and each particular group, is consuming including metrics such as trends over time in user counts and application uses, helpdesk volumes, second- and third-tier support calls, allocated costs.

Posted in Hiring Managers on April 4, 2010

From Justin James in TechRepublic:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-manager/?p=3023&tag=nl.e106

Tests often evaluate rote memorization that the modern development environment does not require (e.g., between the IDE’s autocomplete, F1, and the Internet, library knowledge is not as important as it used to be).

Fundamentals:
* Explain the difference between “equality” and “equivalence” (credits to TechRepublic member Tony Patton for this question).
* What is the difference between “pass by value” and “pass by reference”? How are these ideas different in object-oriented systems and procedural systems?
* Describe “polymorphism.”
* Compare and contrast “pessimistic locking” and “optimistic locking.”

Any candidate who cannot successfully answer the first two is “entry level” at best. The second two should be answerable for any “intermediate” developer.

Thought Process: “The Chicken Question”
“If you had your way, how would you design a chicken, and why?”

Whiteboard programming
* Calculate the Fibonacci value for a number X
* Determine whether or not a given number X is prime
* Reverse an array without using a loop
* FizzBuzz
Or write the pseudocode and ask the candidate what the logic is trying to accomplish.

Code reviews
You should be looking for a candidate who can make optimizations, find “fence posting errors” (and other common mistakes), and so on. This will show that that person understands the difference between good code and poor code and know how to write good code.

The Usual Suspects
Instead of asking, “What’s your biggest weakness?” try asking, “What aspect of Web development do you feel weakest in?” (or whatever kind of development your project is in). If your candidate lacks the exact set of skills that you’re looking for, don’t ask them, “Do you think you could come up to speed quickly in these tools?” Because, of course, she will say she can. Instead, ask for examples of how she has been able to perform jobs despite lacking the skill set at the beginning.