Information Technology jobs and other financial job openings. Browse Information Technology jobs in San Francisco, USA

The biggest user of technology in an investment bank is the trading floor and everything related to it. Technology may be required to help with buying and selling financial products electronically, processing them through smart-order routing systems or communicating to help trades go through smoothly and quickly. These multimillion dollar technology projects are absolutely crucial to successful operations.

IT careers in financial services fall into five separate departments. These are usually development, business analysis, project management, infrastructure and technical support.

Developers are at the frontlines of the IT department. Some development jobs may require developing completely new systems in-house, which offers opportunities for developers using Java or other coding languages to use their knowledge. Often, however, banks buy software off the shelf from third-party companies. In these cases, the developer will need to modify the software to serve the institution's particular needs or integrate it into existing systems.

When creating systems for flow products like equities or FX, developers aim for "low latency" or to reduce the amount of time taken while executing and processing a trade.

Business analysts connect with both the IT department and the business side of the organization, investigating how technology can be used to improve the bank's competitive advantage.

Meanwhile, project managers will take the reins of the new venture once it's been given the go-ahead. Project management roles are strategic and involve planning, structuring and eventual completion of the projects. Project managers work with a team of developers, liaise with third-party vendors and are answerable to the business should plans go awry.

Those in technical support jobs solve problems when they arise on the trading floor. Infrastructure roles deal with the nuts and bolts of IT - everything from servers to operating systems to databases.

This section also includes IT jobs working for third-party vendors, which specialize in providing software for a particular sector.