I recently read Jared Dillian’s Street Freak. Here are some similarities between traders and software developers.

Age distribution

Both fields are flooded with young talents.

Gender distribution

Both fields are male dominated.

Work schedule

Both fields operate in a fast paced environment.

In finance, the tickers update almost every second.

In software, imagine you’re in a CS school that’s structured after medical school. After you finished years of education and mastered everything about one of the many required Javascript libraries, Kidney JS 2.0, the whole industry has dropped Kidney JS 2.0 and moved on to Kidney JS 3.0.

Yes, my Kidney JS satire is based on a real JavaScript library. See https://www.simplilearn.com/angularjs-vs-angular-2-vs-angular-4-differences-article

Writing & communication

On page 198,

I knew that I wasn’t the greatest financial mind, but I also knew that nobody else on the street could write worth a damn. I gave up reading street research after only a few tries. It was abhorrent. Financial people are the worst writers in the world.

I’m sure that software developers are strong contestants for the worst writers in the world prize.

We’re both trained to be technical and analytical. We’re conditioned to be detail oriented and it’s hard for us to zoom out.

Competition

Both fields are extremely competitive. In Dillian’s book, he described how a trader’s performance gets evaluated and how quickly a trader could get sacked. In software, it’s very similar. Perhaps every white collar worker can more or less relate.