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Hope you are well and have had a great start to 2015!
We wanted to take this opportunity to give you a brief update on the IT market for Q1 2015.
At Pinpoint Asia, we specialise in two main sectors (a) Finance Technology (b) Hi-Tech/Commerce sector.
The main trends are below:
- We have seen the market pick up quite significantly during Q1, 2015. This quarter was far better in terms of hiring activity compared to the first quarters of 2013 and 2014.
- We saw mainland Investment Banks trying to ramp up hiring in Hong Kong. With new projects across Retail and Institutional Securities Trading being approved, the mainland banks have been hiring quite a lot of people within technology. European and American banks were also hiring but the majority of the roles were mainly made available because of attrition. A lot of the attrition has been due to structural changes or poor bonuses. The confidence in the market has picked up enough to warrant a job change upon receiving a low bonus. Around two years’ back, many were happy to just have a job!
- The market looks like it has made a very strong recovery after the dull years of 2013 and 2014 but it’s not at the peak levels of 2006/2007. However, it looks like confidence is returning given the economy in general is improving. Companies are talking more and more about expansion plans and the dreadful “headcount freezes” of 2013/2014 is easing.
| Investment Banking / Trading Systems
Vendors |
Core Banking / Retail Banking
Technology |
Insurance Technology | Retail Technology |
|
Developers: – Core Java on (ideally) a Unix platform Quant roles (IBs): – Mathematical developers with strong academic qualifications and knowledge of a programming language (usually Java)
|
Developers:
-J2EE developers primarily with knowledge of Websphere / IBM products – Mobile developers (Android or iPhone) (usually with the relevant domain experience) |
Developers:
– were popular hires. Business Analysts/PMs: – BAs with process-driven Requirements Gathering experience and PMs who’ve managed very large programmes |
Developers: – J2EE/Agile developers and C#/ASP.NET developers who have experience with enterprise level systems |
|
Trending Technologies |
|||
| – Scala for developers, Agile methodology
including knowledge of SCRUM. – Haskell/Python for Quants is something we came across quite frequently – Data Analysis/Big Data developers (including KDB/Q) is also something we are hearing about quite a bit |
– Mobile is becoming a growing trend.
(Incidentally, old languages such as COBOL also exist more in Core Banking) |
– For PMs, the scale of the project and
governance experience across large programmes seem to be more important |
– Ruby on Rails, a strong portfolio of UX/UI
work seem to be more important |
Infrastructure roles, especially BAU roles like Helpdesk Support, Windows/Linux Admin roles are common and continue to be a much needed skill-set in the market across all industries.
Hope you found this information useful. Please do contact us should you need more information.
If you are thinking about a change, check out our latest hot jobs!
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