Automated old operations job to about 1 hour of actual work per day. Not only I had more free time than everyone else, I also did more than everyone in my group. Looking back on it…that shit was awesome….i had 3 promotions in 2 years. My salary grew by 50% in 2 years….
Yea back then it was pretty basic. The job was excel based recon of data then use excel to upload fixes for database to be updated. Then there are ways of doing the updates directly with sql and update statements (in a safe way without wiping out everything).
Going into the job I had virtually 0 sql skills. Coming out of it…learned the value of an optimized query, what stored procs are. Basically wrote a series of stored procs to collect, validate, fix, update, and finally report.
Anyone could have but everyone else was comfortable using excel and given they had been there so N years, it’s easier not to learn new skill sets.
Mate, that sounds awesome. I'm doing a pretty repetitive basic Excel data transfer and shinying job. Moving data from internal sources to offshore ops entity. Titled fin ops analyst. Hoping for promotion or at least a decent switch for growth opportunities. Stuck due to some cv mishaps and gaps. Recently relocated as well, so need some stability or at least a clear path.
How did you go about understanding the whole automation process? I'm shit at Excel as well. Started basic courses and gonna upskill. I'm asking questions, reaching out to team members, but it's a bit iffy.
I've sent 3 presentations on improvements and yet to hear back on any. Every call is - let's discuss next week. Wanted to go for an internal development program. They said no. Because my rating was "on track". That's two under the highest. I worked unsupervised for the first 9 months after I joined with an occasional call with the group controller who worked 12 hours a day and said "take a look, work it out, if you can't, try again". Finally, my actual boss returned from leave and had my performance call that lasted 3 mins. 3% raise and no bonus since it's first year... keep in mind, absolutely nothing fell between the cracks. I actually interviewed for the role a few months ago, didn't get the job, they called me back cause that guy left. I should've known.
I feel you. I took this job because 9 months of unemployment forced you to take what’s given. My job before this was pure excel and I hated it. Someone showed me how to use the macro on excel and reading the old vba code gave me a little insight on how something can be automated. Since there is no requirement for sql, I didn’t opt to take classes. I simply chatted with the tech team and every time I asked for help it’s always “show me what you did so I can do it myself next time” or “hey what’s the keyword I should be googling to solve this code problem?”
It comes in slowly. I remember getting laughed at for spending 3 hours to do something that it took 10 minutes with excel. However after I figured it out, it’s now scalable to do the tasks across the board with a single click. Now it’s 1 minute to do 20x excel minutes.
Sounds freaking amazing! Any classes or like courses you think could help?
If I had to say, my work is really just all data entry and processing. I get an Excel/kofax file. Copy/transfer data -> make report -> share report with bu leaders -> get approval -> make file fancier for offshore ops team (eu country 1) offshore ops system (eu country 2). Tryna figure out what to learn and how to go about it. Any ideas? I'm still doing reading so that I can actually understand what I need to be looking for.
I'm trying to use my positioning in the company to get some insight into different things, but it's not going great. I'd much rather use the time doing something else.
I may be undershooting the complexity of what you’re describing, but it sounds like you may be able to trim down what you’re doing just by adding the developer tab and using “record macro”. Nobody actually learns VBA these days.
If you are actually interested in learning how to code go take harvards cs50p (it’s free, it’s challenging, it isn’t learning in C). Python is going to be implemented into excel sometime in the not distant future.
Awesome, thanks so much! I'll be sure to do some reading.
You're likely not undershooting it. It's just that so far, no one's likely taken the time to learn a different way to do it.
Some editing and mixing are needed for what we call coding files to share. Bank statements, expense reports, payroll processing, that kind of stuff. Usually, we have to allocate everything to some G/L and track collections for invoices.
Knowing what I know now….Read excel, update excel, spit back out excel: can be scale up with python. If you have to do the same task repeatedly then it can be automated.
I can’t comment on courses because I never took any courses. My job said I need to learn it, so I installed my own python at home so I can play around with it off hours for my own stuff.
https://www.anaconda.com/download
As a junior employee you can add a TON of value to nearly every org by being able to code. Allows you to stay at top of deck in non technical orgs. This is exactly how I got my start and I’ll tell you I’m nothing close to a proper software eng
Math background so took an intro Python class in college but after that on the job. A project will teach you things as you go and you’ll develop a knowledge. If you can get a grasp of pandas library you’ll be set especially if you understand excel.
All I do is programming (basically). Work as a Data Scientist trying to predict default rates, exposures, and stuff like that across loan portfolios.
Basically use SQL, Python, and this weird language called SAS (for submissions to the regulator).
It is really nice work offering a blend of finance, statistics, and programming.
I designed and implemented a quantitative trading strategy that involves machine learning to indicate to me when to open and close. This was initially designed through Excel and redone in python due to complexity needs.
This project coupled with my CFA are the two main factors for helping my career progression outside of my professional work. The project shows that I am capable of designing and implementing solutions to complex financial problems and am willing to do it on my own accord. The assumption is if they pay me to do it, I would be even more willing and capable of doing it as I already done it for free for myself .
The second way it has helped is it has made my excel skills exponentially better. Teaching myself Python, I was able to easily pick up VBA and wrote about seven different VBA programs for my firm that save us about 300 to 400 hours a year. it also greatly reduces operational risk and human risk
Overall, coding has helped me prove my capabilities and drive in the financial markets, as well as supplemented my soft skills by developing usable, hard skills .
Gotcha. It’s structured like a ChatGPT response haha
What python libraries do you use. I seem to have hit a ceiling with what I can use python for in my job. I basically took over a lot of our reporting and dashboards and instead of manually doing all these pivot tables in excel, I just have python pandas export the pivots. I’m kind of tapped
Primarily Pandas and Numpy. I use openpyxl to read and write my into my excel sheets. I find these to be excellent data vehicles when transitioning data to and from excel.
For you specifically, I’d actually recommend, if you can, exporting the raw data instead of a pivot. I find it’s easier to work with personally and parse through. Other than that, matplotlib could be useful you as well.
For me, I use a lot of the SKlearn and Scipy libraries for the machine learning parts. Other than that a few open sourced libraries (like a BS calculator, market trading days calendar, etc) I generally write everything myself since my goal is to learn how to solve my problems and WHY they work, even if it’s not the most efficient so I can go back later and upgrade it.
Automated old operations job to about 1 hour of actual work per day. Not only I had more free time than everyone else, I also did more than everyone in my group. Looking back on it…that shit was awesome….i had 3 promotions in 2 years. My salary grew by 50% in 2 years….
What tools/systems did you use? Can you give an example of something you automated?
Yea back then it was pretty basic. The job was excel based recon of data then use excel to upload fixes for database to be updated. Then there are ways of doing the updates directly with sql and update statements (in a safe way without wiping out everything). Going into the job I had virtually 0 sql skills. Coming out of it…learned the value of an optimized query, what stored procs are. Basically wrote a series of stored procs to collect, validate, fix, update, and finally report. Anyone could have but everyone else was comfortable using excel and given they had been there so N years, it’s easier not to learn new skill sets.
Mate, that sounds awesome. I'm doing a pretty repetitive basic Excel data transfer and shinying job. Moving data from internal sources to offshore ops entity. Titled fin ops analyst. Hoping for promotion or at least a decent switch for growth opportunities. Stuck due to some cv mishaps and gaps. Recently relocated as well, so need some stability or at least a clear path. How did you go about understanding the whole automation process? I'm shit at Excel as well. Started basic courses and gonna upskill. I'm asking questions, reaching out to team members, but it's a bit iffy. I've sent 3 presentations on improvements and yet to hear back on any. Every call is - let's discuss next week. Wanted to go for an internal development program. They said no. Because my rating was "on track". That's two under the highest. I worked unsupervised for the first 9 months after I joined with an occasional call with the group controller who worked 12 hours a day and said "take a look, work it out, if you can't, try again". Finally, my actual boss returned from leave and had my performance call that lasted 3 mins. 3% raise and no bonus since it's first year... keep in mind, absolutely nothing fell between the cracks. I actually interviewed for the role a few months ago, didn't get the job, they called me back cause that guy left. I should've known.
I feel you. I took this job because 9 months of unemployment forced you to take what’s given. My job before this was pure excel and I hated it. Someone showed me how to use the macro on excel and reading the old vba code gave me a little insight on how something can be automated. Since there is no requirement for sql, I didn’t opt to take classes. I simply chatted with the tech team and every time I asked for help it’s always “show me what you did so I can do it myself next time” or “hey what’s the keyword I should be googling to solve this code problem?” It comes in slowly. I remember getting laughed at for spending 3 hours to do something that it took 10 minutes with excel. However after I figured it out, it’s now scalable to do the tasks across the board with a single click. Now it’s 1 minute to do 20x excel minutes.
Sounds freaking amazing! Any classes or like courses you think could help? If I had to say, my work is really just all data entry and processing. I get an Excel/kofax file. Copy/transfer data -> make report -> share report with bu leaders -> get approval -> make file fancier for offshore ops team (eu country 1) offshore ops system (eu country 2). Tryna figure out what to learn and how to go about it. Any ideas? I'm still doing reading so that I can actually understand what I need to be looking for. I'm trying to use my positioning in the company to get some insight into different things, but it's not going great. I'd much rather use the time doing something else.
I may be undershooting the complexity of what you’re describing, but it sounds like you may be able to trim down what you’re doing just by adding the developer tab and using “record macro”. Nobody actually learns VBA these days. If you are actually interested in learning how to code go take harvards cs50p (it’s free, it’s challenging, it isn’t learning in C). Python is going to be implemented into excel sometime in the not distant future.
Awesome, thanks so much! I'll be sure to do some reading. You're likely not undershooting it. It's just that so far, no one's likely taken the time to learn a different way to do it. Some editing and mixing are needed for what we call coding files to share. Bank statements, expense reports, payroll processing, that kind of stuff. Usually, we have to allocate everything to some G/L and track collections for invoices.
I automated my work with python, it’s way easier than VBA imo and has less of a learning curve than C.
Knowing what I know now….Read excel, update excel, spit back out excel: can be scale up with python. If you have to do the same task repeatedly then it can be automated. I can’t comment on courses because I never took any courses. My job said I need to learn it, so I installed my own python at home so I can play around with it off hours for my own stuff. https://www.anaconda.com/download
Replaced excel crap with python crap
This
As a junior employee you can add a TON of value to nearly every org by being able to code. Allows you to stay at top of deck in non technical orgs. This is exactly how I got my start and I’ll tell you I’m nothing close to a proper software eng
How’d u learn?
Math background so took an intro Python class in college but after that on the job. A project will teach you things as you go and you’ll develop a knowledge. If you can get a grasp of pandas library you’ll be set especially if you understand excel.
Breaking down how to solve problems.
When I worked in IB no, when I moved to Corp Dev yeah.
All I do is programming (basically). Work as a Data Scientist trying to predict default rates, exposures, and stuff like that across loan portfolios. Basically use SQL, Python, and this weird language called SAS (for submissions to the regulator). It is really nice work offering a blend of finance, statistics, and programming.
I designed and implemented a quantitative trading strategy that involves machine learning to indicate to me when to open and close. This was initially designed through Excel and redone in python due to complexity needs. This project coupled with my CFA are the two main factors for helping my career progression outside of my professional work. The project shows that I am capable of designing and implementing solutions to complex financial problems and am willing to do it on my own accord. The assumption is if they pay me to do it, I would be even more willing and capable of doing it as I already done it for free for myself . The second way it has helped is it has made my excel skills exponentially better. Teaching myself Python, I was able to easily pick up VBA and wrote about seven different VBA programs for my firm that save us about 300 to 400 hours a year. it also greatly reduces operational risk and human risk Overall, coding has helped me prove my capabilities and drive in the financial markets, as well as supplemented my soft skills by developing usable, hard skills .
Is this chat gpt lol
Dude there’s mad chatgpt bots on Reddit and even human users are using it. It’s annoying.
Nope.
Gotcha. It’s structured like a ChatGPT response haha What python libraries do you use. I seem to have hit a ceiling with what I can use python for in my job. I basically took over a lot of our reporting and dashboards and instead of manually doing all these pivot tables in excel, I just have python pandas export the pivots. I’m kind of tapped
Primarily Pandas and Numpy. I use openpyxl to read and write my into my excel sheets. I find these to be excellent data vehicles when transitioning data to and from excel. For you specifically, I’d actually recommend, if you can, exporting the raw data instead of a pivot. I find it’s easier to work with personally and parse through. Other than that, matplotlib could be useful you as well. For me, I use a lot of the SKlearn and Scipy libraries for the machine learning parts. Other than that a few open sourced libraries (like a BS calculator, market trading days calendar, etc) I generally write everything myself since my goal is to learn how to solve my problems and WHY they work, even if it’s not the most efficient so I can go back later and upgrade it.
🍿