I see quite a few SWE jobs here in Singapore in finance, mostly realtime C++ order management. If the advertised salaries are real, they're very well-paid (300-700k USD, plus bonus).

The path of least resistance is to become a well known C++ or systems guru.

This can be done by contributing substantially to the language standard, a compiler, etc etc.

Or you could learn COBOL!

First step, understand what Finance means in the scope of technology work.