Coding for Exchange Traded Funds
By: Tim Terrezza
Tell us about your background.
I grew up in New Jersey and graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2015 with a dual major in Game Design and Computer Science. After graduation, I started working for Merck in a rotational program where you spend eight months in three different areas within the company. For my three rotations, I worked on developing internal analytics applications, was part of a team developing a program for the Microsoft HoloLens for scientists to visualize molecules in the drug discovery process and lastly built the USA Animal Health website.
After working for Merck, I joined JPMorgan Chase as a frontend engineer and worked on the investments section of chase.com. I became the Lead Developer for the team I was on and eventually learned how to develop iPhone apps to work on the Chase app.
Early last year, I joined a startup called SIMON Markets and am currently working as a frontend engineer there.
What do you work on?
I work on the ETF (exchange traded fund) section of the SIMON Markets website which is a marketplace for Structured Investments, Annuities and ETFs. Our site connects banks, who are offering these products, to financial advisors, who buy them for their clients. The site is built in JavaScript using React and Redux.
How do you use coding in your industry/projects?
A day doesn’t go by where I don’t write any code. It is an integral part of my job and I enjoy it.
Any insights or tips for young programmers?
As you can kind of see from my background, coding is industry agnostic. I moved from healthcare to finance and was considering a few other industries as well. Choose an industry that interests you! If you are interested in what you’re working on, it’s the cherry on top of an already fun profession.
What tools and programming languages do you use?
- JavaScript
- React
- Redux
- Redux-Saga
- HTML
- Handlebars
- SCSS
- Yarn
- Jest
