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Well... since when are financial engineers supposed to be good software developers? Even if you're mega-smart, it's virtually impossible to be an expert in pricing derivatives and, simultaneously, an expert in writing code. Some quants were good at coding before they became quants, but as soon as you has some minions hacking for you, your coding skills deteriorate amazingly fast.

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Most of the quants have to code themselves. Some of them have PhD/MS from the best CS departments. Very few of them have an army of "minions hacking for [them]".

That doesn't automatically mean they develop superior sofftware development skills, but I think your comment misrepresents the reality.

You are right. I know some quants who have a couple of younger coders to help them with the implementation, but most of them have to code stuff on their own. Sometimes it's "quantish" code like numerical PDEs and SDEs (which is what quants should be doing), other times one has to create GUI's and such stuff which an enthusiastic teenager is more qualified to do than a PhD...

since when are financial engineers supposed to be good software developers

The context makes it clear that he's talking about the same people.

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