What do you need to know? Java Enterprise Edition. That’s the simple answer.
If you read between the lines what I’m really saying is: “You better make sure you really don’t give a flying toss about technology and don’t care about how frustrating what you spend most of your day doing is.”
A few days ago I was talking with a friend who’s in the process of interviewing with a few big financial institutions in London. The most common questions according to him. Struts, JEE.
Spring was also mentioned by I don’t have much against Spring. If used properly it really does keep your code tidy and avoids duplication.
You see a bank’s idea of a high performance reliable system is a monolithic Java application running a million-billion threads at the same time on a huge machine. Maybe that’s a bit too harsh. Sometimes they do distribute. They just add 15 layers shooting messages at each other in between the 2 they actually need.
Then they wonder why the best talent winds up working for Google, and their budget to deliver 1 application is twice what Facebook spent to build its entire social network.
What I have a problem with is the architects who design these systems. And the clearly-drunken bank managers who hired them.
The most common profile for architects in investment banks (and I met quite a few) is 50-something, stopped following/reading about technology in 1995 and prior to being employed by Mr Mighty WankBank (Thanks City Boy for the name) was VP of over-engineering at the Apache Software Foundation (focused on Struts).
First thing in their TODO list is hire some bright spark straight out of university who has a keen interest in over-engineering and never had to deliver anything in less than a geological era.
That’s when an overpaid team of consultants comes in to “sort-it-out”, at which point the bank loses control over its source-code and none of their developers can understand it any more.
Oh, and then there’s the process, oh the bureaucracy.
Fortunately I also know that in London there are a few sunny spots (techonology-wise) such as Hedge funds who started using Erlang (for example) to distribute their heavy computations over a network.
Now don’t get me wrong I have nothing against JEE per-se. Some of the libraries are actually very useful and improve a developer’s quality of life quite a lot. Just think about JTA.
What is wrong is the way they are used by people who never left the nineties.
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I would just like to say thanks for posting this. Nothing like a good bit of slating to cheer my day up =)
Ryan
My pleasure
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You should see Microsoft DNA guys working with .NET. That’s being stuck in the nineties! They are struggling with inheritance concepts since they worked with VB6 and they absolutely adore regions so they can ‘organize’ their 3000+ line files.
Awful isn’t it! In fairness tho .NET has come a long way since its “humble” beginnings. Last time I looked at C# I almost decided to switch to it from java right away
VB6 fans (if there can be such a thing) can inflict VB.Net on the rest of us. Meanwhile ex Java fanatics like me can be perfectly happy with C#.
Great post. Can you give any more info on which funds are using Erlang ?
There’s a few investment companies looking. Check out Trafigura who’s offering internships working on Erlang (http://graduates.trafigura.com/).
Also for Erlang jobs in London have a look here. http://www.technojobs.co.uk/jobs-in/london/Erlang
Hey Stef, just sounds the tiniest bit bitter.
In fact it sounds like your ‘friend’ is no longer young enough to be considered a bright spark out of uni but not old enough to be part of the architecture astronaut ‘elite’ and so jobless either way.
Coming from somebody who abused this over-spending system from both sides fo the fence. First as a consultant “sooooolving” problems then as an architect.
My friend as been sucked into the Java over-engineering business over the past few years working in London
From what I can see your ‘friend’ has under engineered for the past few years and we are left picking up the pieces
You sound a bit bitter too. Still morose about the fact that I’m leaving?
I’m sure you’ll do just fine despite your obvious short-comings
I think I have done a good job of holding onto the real talent
If you want to indulge in a bit of industrial espionage, just read the help wanted ads. They basically give away the store right there with their “demandments”
Actually, choosing one of the aforementioned jobs is really a vote on your tolerance for bureaucracy more than any particular technology.
Worked for an investment bank, and have the tire tracks on my back to prove it.
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