Excel VBA Developer job???

[gurm]

Hi,

Not sure if this is the right forum for this question, but here goes.

I'm interested in becoming an Excel VBA developer and have seen numerous vacancies for positions in investment banks, within London, working with financial processes and derivatives. I would like to find out what kind of work this involves and how difficult it is to move into this sector.

I currently work as a Visual Basic/SQL developer and have experience in developing in Excel VBA as well. It would be great if I can get some feedback from Excel VBA developers or from people who know about this type of job as to what I may need to know and if I could easily move into this sector.

many thanks
gurm

 

[rog1111]

You will probably need what they describe as "business knowledge", in addition to first rate VBA skills, especially if you are looking at an options job. The former can possibly can be obtained from good books with a bit of effort, at least just enough to get through the interview.

rog1111

Hi,

Not sure if this is the right forum for this question, but here goes.

I'm interested in becoming an Excel VBA developer and have seen numerous vacancies for positions in investment banks, within London, working with financial processes and derivatives. I would like to find out what kind of work this involves and how difficult it is to move into this sector.

I currently work as a Visual Basic/SQL developer and have experience in developing in Excel VBA as well. It would be great if I can get some feedback from Excel VBA developers or from people who know about this type of job as to what I may need to know and if I could easily move into this sector.

many thanks
gurm

 

[rog1111]

....yes I agree with GJ that it would be a tight call to attempt to do this from books only, although I was thinking particularly of contract options jobs, where other types of developers would have no chance. However if you could come in with what looks like an outstanding theoretical knowledge of them, and if you had done at least some VBA work on pricing models etc then you may have a chance at least.. After all there are only so many questions that they can ask you at interview. I was in exactly this position many years back, having completely digested Natenburg's options book , but, as a VB bloke at the time my VBA wasn't really good enough.

Good luck anyway
rog1111

 

[A Dashing Blade]

1) There is a world of difference between doing VB and writing a desk based VBA spreaddy, there are a LOT of little tricks that should be employed. Hard core VB guys don't tend to write good spreaddys/vba (remember that XL vba has the second biggest object model in the microsoft universe, Word being the first). First step is to know Excel's capabilities.

2) VBA stuff also tends to be very real time based so it's wise to know your way around getting data from Bloomie/Reuters into a spreaddy efficiantly (HINT: don't use DDE!)

3) It's a role with a glass ceiling career wise which is why a lot of people only do it for a few years. There are, to my knowledge, only about 10 guys in the City with around 10 years experience in this field (I'm one of them) and most of them are now in the £750-£1250 per day bracket working for hedge funds.

4) Specific product knowledge can be substituted for having a very thorough grounding in the basic fundamentals eg npv, discounting cash flows, basic options theory etc

5) Realise that trading is 80% mental, you have to get inside the traders heads. You also have to keep up to date with financial product development (ie where the business is going) to efficiantly design your fundamental architecture, a trivial example would be a trader who "only trades USD instruments" . . . like f**k does that mean I can hard code "USD" in the code!!!

Moving into this area from a non-banking background is going to mean getting a foot in the VB door somewhere (difficult as most places are .Net or Java these days) and then moving to vba projects.

At the end of the day it's a very specialised role, difficult to do well but possiblt the most interesting IT role in the City,

 

[gurm]

Thanks for all the advice.

It has definitely given me an understanding of what the job entails and what kind of experience I would need. I do hope I get the opportunity to become a vba developer in the financial sector one day as it sounds like a really interesting job.



cheers
gurm

 

[rog1111]

I've never really had much success in doing this, any more hints ?

rog1111

.........2) VBA stuff also tends to be very real time based so it's wise to know your way around getting data from Bloomie/Reuters into a spreaddy efficiantly (HINT: don't use DDE!)...........................

 

[kiko2614]

Vba

Gurm, I think if you already know VB, you won't have any trouble learning VBA. You will need to have a task to do and then the patience to deal with error messages until you achieve what you want the program to do.