Why the coolest job in tech might actually be in a bank

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Working in a bank’s technology department might finally be as cool as than landing a job at Google. The market for tech talent is more measured than a few years ago, but big banks say they are still aggressively hiring.

And talent is flocking to the sector, which can offer new hires the chance to file patents and work under researchers plucked from top academic departments. Job stability and the social cachet that comes with saying you work at JPMorgan Chase don’t hurt either. At recruitment events, students are lining up out the door, according to Christine Tu, a distinguished engineer at Morgan Stanley and the head of artificial intelligence and machine learning in its wealth management technology division.

That wasn’t happening a few years ago, she added. Tu credits the interest in part to the sector’s success promoting its AI and technology work. Morgan Stanley has talked extensively about its early partnership with OpenAI.

“With all those long lines, people are talking to us. I feel like they also understand there’s more and more utilization within the financial area that could match their skill sets and their interests," she said. While technology companies remain the biggest employers of recent tech graduates, the financial services sector is creeping closer.

Cornell University said that 22% of its 2023 computer science graduates went into financial services, up from 16% in 2022. At Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, 19% of master of information systems management graduates between 2020 and 2023 went into financial services, up from 16% between 2018 and 2021. Prem Natarajan, said he has been able to leverage his experience working at the University of Southern