On Wall Street, code kings rule the roost as 'traders' take the backseat

There used to be a strict hierarchy: Traders made money and won glory while programmers wrote code and stayed out of sight. Those days are over

Meet the straders.

Part risk-taking trader and part computer-whiz “strategist,” they are prowling the halls at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., erasing a once-religious line between the jocks and the nerds.

“You say ‘trader’ and I don’t even know what we’re talking about,” said Adam Korn, a 16-year Goldman veteran. “Everyone who comes to sales and trading needs to know how to code.”

Mr. Korn is the unofficial king of the straders, and an evangelist for the financial world they represent. Across Wall Street, traders who spent their formative years barking into phones are signing up for coding classes. Engineers once relegated to the