Wall Street firms are gaining ground in the talent war as hiring freezes impact Silicon Valley and computer engineers move from big tech and crypto to finance
Computer engineers are returning to finance after a reversal of fortune in the war for talent — After years of fighting … Tweets: @pkedrosky , @hkanji , and @carlquintanilla Tweets: Paul Kedrosky / @pkedrosky : “When somebody says it's not about the money, it's about the money.” ― H.L. Mencken FT: Wall St jobs are hot again as tech and crypto lay off staff https://www.ft.com/... Hussein Kanji / @hkanji : Computer engineers are returning to finance after a reversal of fortune in the war for talent https://t.co/ZWx7jzlK0I Carl Quintanilla / @carlquintanilla : (FT) - After years of fighting to attract computer engineers who would rather work for big tech groups or crypto start-ups, Wall Street firms say they are recovering lost ground in the talent war as lay-offs and hiring freezes spread through Silicon Valley https://www.ft.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The talent flow between finance and tech has been running one way for years: back in 2017, hedge funds were offering lavish perks just to compete with Google and Facebook for data science hires, and by late 2021 crypto was the newest poacher, with blockchain startups raising $28B+ and pulling execs and engineers out of big tech.
This article marks the reversal. With Silicon Valley freezing hiring, computer engineers are heading back to Wall Street — even as overall tech occupation employment hit a record 6.39M, workers are eyeing banking, retail, health care, and manufacturing instead.
First-order effects
- Wall Street firms regain access to the computer engineering pipeline they spent years losing to big tech and crypto, while those sectors' layoffs push experienced engineers onto the market at the same moment.
- Crypto firms that were net importers of talent during the 2021 funding boom become net exporters as their hiring pull collapses.
Second-order effects
- Hedge funds' perk-and-pay arms race against Google and Facebook loses urgency when the competing employers are freezing headcount rather than bidding up offers.
- Tech workers diversifying into banking, retail, health care, and manufacturing spreads compensation pressure beyond finance, forcing non-tech employers to price for engineering skills they previously got cheaply.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, engineering talent rotates cyclically between tech, crypto, and finance with capital cycles acting as the pump — meaning neither sector owns a durable talent moat, only a temporary one.
- A finance sector re-staffed with engineers deepens its technical capability, positioning banks and funds to compete directly with tech firms on data- and software-driven products rather than merely renting that skill.
The trend: Engineering talent is flowing back toward finance as tech and crypto retrench, confirming that the tech-finance talent balance swings with capital cycles rather than settling permanently.