A Goldman ED has just jumped to the buy-side in Hong Kong
Shifting to the buy-side remains a popular career goal for many on the sell-side, despite the immense difficulties of actually securing a role at a top hedge fund or private equity firm. Haris Lazanitis has managed to make the move – he’s just left Goldman Sachs in Tokyo for Citadel, the $30bn US hedge fund, in Hong Kong, according to his online profile.
But Lazanitis isn’t a young banker, he’s a software engineer who was with Goldman for 13 years and had reached executive director level. And he’s left GS at a time of unprecedented investment in technology at the bank, where engineers now make up about a quarter of all employees.
Lazanitis, who’s now a senior software engineer at Citadel, is part of a growing group of experienced technologists in Asia who are quitting banks not for small fintech startups, but for big players on the buy-side, says Vince Natteri, a former programmer who’s now managing director of IT search firm Pinpoint Asia.
Technologists at banks, like their front-office counterparts, typically consider hedge funds to be “sexier” places to work, offering higher potential bonuses, says Natteri. “The environment there for techies is somewhere between a startup and a serious corporate,” he adds. “And compared with the sell-side there’s usually more freedom to choose the tools and tech stacks you work with – there’s more freedom and you’re not pigeonholed into a particular role, which is common in banks.”
Natteri says buy-side firms in Hong Kong are currently seeking people with expertise in Python, HTML5, JavaScript, and DevOps. “Candidates also need to be able to communicate well and be strong programmers with solid fundamentals, because they’ll be in firms where they’ll be required to learn more than just one thing. Buy-side tech teams tend to be smaller, with varied tech experience,” says Natteri.
New Citadel recruit Lazanitis joined Goldman Sachs in London as a developer in 2005 before relocating to Tokyo in 2008. He is not the only Citadel tech employee to have clocked up 13 years with Goldman. US-based Umesh Subramanian, Citadel’s chief technology officer, was with Goldman between 2005 and 2018, latterly as a partner and co-head of the technology division.
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