Need career advice, please help

Your firm just gave you a pretty unheard of opportunity, to move from support ops to the investment side is not typically offered. You would be crazy not to take this. If your trying to compare a FO position at a LO HF vs. being a career banker, there shouldnt be a single person on this site advising you to take the IBD route. The only, and I do mean only rationale for choosing IBD is if you need sponsorship longterm and you're concerned about the HF getting tanked during the inevitable recession in '23.

From a comp perspective, from a interest perspective, from every perspective I can think of, the HF offers a much more enticing opportunity. No one in their right mind takes IBD over a HF role. Yes the HF role comes with more risk and less of a transparent career trajectory, but dont choose IBD because it is safe. Everyone will tell you the buy side is more interesting because there is inherent truth in that. Corp Dev may not be as sexy as PE or working at HF, but I still find the work to be 10x more interesting than banking. All of my friends in their 3rd year of banking or later are bored out of their skulls, tired of going through the same motions. I dont know how people continue to do it year after year, when selling companies isnt really as sexy as people make it out to be. There is no investment thesis, growth bets, ties to macroeconomics (at least to the same degree of the buy side), or complex modeling like there is on the buy side.

Roll the dice and take this extremely unique opportunity.