Clear Street Innovation, Technology & Agility

What practices does your team employ to foster innovation, and how have these practices led to more creative, out-of-the-box thinking?

As a software engineer at Clear Street, I’ve seen that while we do participate in hackathons and lunch-and-learn sessions, most innovation comes from the rhythm of everyday work. Clear Street is modernizing the brokerage ecosystem with fintech and services that empower our clients, and that requires creating the right environment for inspiration to strike. 

Open communication is key. Most of our “meetings” happen as informal chats at our desks or in Slack, which keeps the team in the loop. This also provides a space for the entire team to share their ideas, feedback or insight. We are also driven by curiosity. Our team drives conversation with the simple question, “Why?” which leads us down productive conversations, uncovering problems or solutions that aren’t immediately obvious. Finally, we have created a sense of trust. Allowing people to do what they think is important instead of only doing the next ticket of work can often add unexpected value. When you combine curiosity, trust and a strong culture, innovation naturally follows.

How has a focus on innovation increased the quality of your team’s work?

Our firm recently began integrating AI into our tech stack. While everyone has likely seen how powerful large language models can be, incorporating them into financial systems can be tricky. During a conversation about AI development tools, we discovered that we could use AI to automate by parsing freeform client emails to translate them into allocation instructions. It was a perfect solution to an error-prone manual process. 

We quickly built an AI solution, and to our surprise, the LLMs did an even better job than we did at parsing convoluted client requests! I also had an opportunity to present the system to a wider audience of engineers. This sparked many more conversations across the firm with people who wanted to use AI but didn’t know where to start. Now we have multiple AI workstreams being kicked off in the firm, and it’s become another tool in our technology toolkit. 

It’s exciting to be given the time to explore and build out a proof of concept outside of the team’s immediate priorities, and the ability to do so is adding value to the firm. It’s hard to know in advance if something will succeed, but at Clear Street, we believe it’s worth trying. More often than not, it pays off!

How has a focus on innovation bolstered your team’s culture?

Like I mentioned above, innovation is often downstream of a collaborative culture, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an effect in the other direction! Innovation can enable a real sense of ownership on the team, and accomplishments can feel personal when your idea moved the needle on delivering a feature or you saved the day by suggesting something to your teammate. When you work on a team where each member cares and has ownership of the product, work becomes easy. Your innovative success can inspire others on your team to think outside the box, with AI as a case in point. The more innovation you’re around, the more you get inspired!