Goldman Sachs hunt for tech talent forces it to relax dress code  

In its bid to attract the best tech talents to its establishment, Wall Street, bank Goldman Sachs, has relaxed its traditional buttoned-up dress code for computer engineers in its employment. Such talents are known to prefer a more casual environment.

In a report filed by news agency Reuters, Goldman Sachs, the fifth-largest U.S. bank by assets told employees in its technology division to “exercise judgment in determining when to adapt to business attire,” in an internal memo from late June.

It did not specify whether hoodies or sneakers, the ad-hoc uniform of millennial tech workers, constitute acceptable dress.

The move, one of the first by Goldman’s new chief information officer Elisha Wiesel, comes as the bank makes a push to recruit and keep hold of top tech talent in the face of intensifying competition.

Goldman and other Wall Street banks have been struggling for years to compete for the best employees with Silicon Valley firms and hedge funds, which often have better hours and workplace perks for top software developers and engineers.

Wiesel replaced Martin Chavez, now the firm’s chief financial officer, as Goldman’s highest ranking technology executive in January.

About a quarter of Goldman’s 33,000 employees are engineers who have helped transform the firm since the 2007-2009 financial crisis by making trading more efficient and building new businesses such as its consumer lending platform called Marcus.

The majority of the bank’s employees still adhere to a professional business dress code unless told otherwise by their group’s manager.

Other banks are also relaxing dress codes. Last year, JPMorgan Chase & Co said it would allow employees to wear business-casual attire on most occasions. In 2013, Barclays Plc started to allow casual Fridays.