Treasury Technology: the first twelve months

After completing a Computer Science Degree at Manchester University I started on the Treasury Technology programme in September 2007.

A fair bit has happened in the past 12 months, so here's a 'brief' summary of what has happened so far:

I began work at BOS Treasury (located in 33 Old Broad St, London) at the start of September last year. After a series of introductions to the different divisions, this was swiftly followed by a Markets training course at the London Stock Exchange. (All of which is conveniently roughly around the same time as Treasury Summer Party). To end the initial training, we were sent on a team building exercise out in the nearby woods of Tonbridge Wells.

Within Treasury Technology, you'll spent a little more time training with one of the managers in order to get familiar with the guidelines and procedures we need to adhere by when working for this department.

My first rotation was in Risk Technology as part of the BAU team. Their daily tasks are ensuring the smooth running of the Risk IT systems after processing the batches as well as implementing additional changes to the production systems.

The second rotation was in Development and QA. This rotation is split in two halves:

* Superstructure. This department tackles how messages are passed over the Treasury network from application to application.
* Currently, I'm working in the Small Applications team. At the moment, I'm tailoring an application that suits the needs of the end-users.

Next week, I'll be shifting roles from Small Apps to Trading where I'll be supporting one of the applications used to deal with trades being made by the people in Front-Office.

In the first year, I've worked with technologies such as UNIX, SQL (in its different variants), Java, C#, ASP.Net, XML, and JavaScript. No doubt, there will be more things to learn at a later date before this year is out. Depending on the upcoming tasks, your line manager and HR will arrange the appropriate technology training for you.

However, Financial IT is not just about coding. Learning soft skills is essential in an organisation such as BOS Treasury. (E.g. understanding your end users' requirements, time management etc), so expect to be sent out on communication courses, time management courses, etc. Ignore those software engineering/management modules at your own peril.

Anyway, that's 12 months in a nutshell. You'll find working in the City a whirlwind with all the stuff going on inside/outside of work. It's an interesting place to be.