Today technology plays a major role at investment banks and other organisations in the finance world. 

Investment banks' trading floors are now driven by some of the fastest, most sophisticated, and most rapidly developing systems in existence. Meanwhile, asset management firms are developing ever-more complex investment management and risk analysis tools. And across the finance world, the opportunities offered by new technological phenomena such as cloud computing and "big data" analysis are being explored.

Some people working in technology in finance focus on developing specific technological tools, while others manage projects or plan a business’s use of technology from a commercial perspective. You could be working closely with a particular business area, or working on technology issues that affect the entire organisation.

Here are just two examples of specific roles technology teams play in finance:

Designing a trading system to allow traders to price products in a new asset class effectively

Technology teams will:

• code the system from scratch
• build in a feature to allow traders to see the risk associated with any particular product
• enable traders to receive market information relevant to that asset class very quickly
• interact with traders to ensure the system meets their needs on an ongoing basis.

Responding when an investment bank’s data centre gets destroyed by a hurricane.

Technology teams will:

• consider what needs to be done first and how to prioritise other tasks
• reroute all processes to backup systems and make sure they’re running effectively
• track the progress of all steps taken
• ensure communication between the technology team and other employees and clients affected is working properly.