A Wall Street CTO has advice for building a career in technology in a bank

In recent years, banks have become full -fledged technology giants with large budgets, an emphasis on research and development of patents, and a constant demand for tools and products that meet customers.

Wall Street has become a technologist destination that competes with Googles and Amazons in the world. An example of this trend is Hina Shamsi, the Director of Divisions Technology which serves the Heritage and Institution Management Companies of Morgan Stanley.

Shamsi, who also sits on the technological operating committee that drives technology and strategy through the company, tells us about her career path and what she believes that people should know about a career in technology in a bank. This test also told is based on a conversation with Shamsi, which is based in New York. It was published for duration and clarity.

I am of South Asian origin. I grew up in Kuwait and Pakistan in a very conservative environment with very avant-garde parents. I was the first in my family to leave the house and go to North America for higher education.

If you asked me for years ago: I saw myself in Wall Street as director of technology? I would have said no.

I went to school at the University of Texas in Austin. I obtained a diploma in mathematics, then a master’s degree in operational research by focusing on computer science. Consider operational research as the mother of modern AI used to solve large -scale problems. There were a few industries where it was done, such as the defense industry, the airlines and, to a certain extent, health care.

I always knew that I wanted to solve very large and harsh mathematical problems.

A friend of the air transport industry told me that his work was very linked to my academic history. I took a call from his business, saber. It has its headquarters near Dallas and is very important in the creation of systems that help airlines plan and optimize timetables, routes and other decisions.

I took the job and fell in love with the industry. I spent almost 17 years there before making my first call from a financial service company.

What attracted me to finance was the huge opportunity it presented for innovation and transformation. It is a very dynamic industry, and it continues to mature. There is never a boring moment.

As a leader in technology, you have the opportunity to work on large -scale emerging technology, such as automatic learning and artificial intelligence – you call it. But you can also solve some of the most difficult commercial problems, as evidenced by our work deploying our first two generative products for financial advisers, in partnership with Openai.

Learn the business

Like very large -scale systems on which I worked in airlines, Fintech is a very complex environment. There are large -scale and high availability transaction systems. Thus, my technological experience lends itself very well to financial services.

But I did not know the business. I had to learn it.

I have read all the documents that were available to me in the huge amount of training content from the bank. But I think you can only go so far by reading for yourself.

I sat with business leaders to really probe what is in mind for them, the problems they think: what are your first three? You always want to have an impulse on what your industry thinks.

The second thing I did, what I really encourage people to do, is not only to talk to the elderly. Sometimes you get the best information by talking to people who are on the ground working on problems day after day. Whether you are sitting with the financial advisor and just watching them take a call, or sitting on the negotiation floor at a capital desk by looking at a merchant user technology – there is no better way to know how good or bad your technology until you observe it.

Even today, I take the time to sit with a financial advisor and ask them what their pain points are, what they like and what they don’t like. You will be surprised to see how much you learn by putting yourself in their place.

Encourage “healthy debate” between technology and business leaders

Today, technologists play a more important role in shaping the company through its products and the strategy itself, not just execution.

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for us to be involved in the development of business cases. Business managers understand the business well, but they do not understand the art of the possible; They don’t understand technology well. I describe it this way: the heads of the corporate ways know the “what” and the “why”, but they do not understand the “how”. This is where technology comes into play.

Sometimes business needs and technical realities do not line up. It is a healthy debate, and it is essential for the creative process.

Business leaders have ideas and expectations that are sometimes very frankly, unreasonable because their role is to push and look at it from the customer’s point of view. Then you also see technologists create technologies only for technology.

When you bring these two together, this debate is really good for the creative process. We encourage this because we want various ideas, so that when we produce something, it has been well thought out.

Advice for new graduates

The most important thing that a computer student can do today to prepare to work in Wall Street technology is to think more broadly about their role, not only as a technologist but also as a business technologist.

Which makes you stand out – and we interview thousands of candidates each year – these are niche skills, such as cloud expertise, as well as any experience with AI and automatic learning. These are the skills we are looking for.

Once you have technical skills, the next step is to focus on learning business through tangible experiences, such as internships, as soon as possible. Develop the skills you have academically academies and apply them to specific environments to companies with data and data confidentiality railing.

Complete the commercial state of mind with technical knowledge, and this is where you maximize the value.

Do you want to share your career path with us? Fill this fast form.