Corp Dev at FAANG++ or BB IB or Corp Dev in Software/Cloud for Offer
Currently with two offers, one for L5 / L6 Corp Dev at a FAANG ++ firm (Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Salesforce, NVIDIA etc), and the other for IB at a BB (M&A). Am also in the process for Corp Dev at a cloud oriented firm (Atlassian, Zoom, Adobe etc), and I'm reasonably confident that I'll get the offer.
I'm leaning towards the corp dev offer (pay's absolutely amazing), but wanted to get some second opinions, and decided to post on here. Would love some insights and is there a scenario where the IB offer would make more sense?
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How did u get the corp dev offer?
Did RX consulting, moved to corp dev at a F500, got some good deal experience, and decided to try my luck recruiting elsewhere.
hey, i'm a sophomore in college headed into RX consulting for junior summer and am interested in tech; I would be really grateful if I could get some advice, could you please pm me?
Mind sharing comp at FAANG?
L5 is 350K, and L6 is around 500k. RSUs are the biggest difference tho, assuming the stock does well (which I'm reasonably confident it will)
That comp is insane. How many YOE do you have?
Please please please do IB
Corp dev, especially in house corp dev is not really an important role in the Bay Area unless you’re maybe at Cisco in the 2000s
You want the rigor and structured promotions of an IB
Is corp dev really as bad as ppl say it is? Even at FAANG firms? Based on the response above, comp seems pretty okay, and I'm guessing WLB isn't bad?
Is it bc of the structured promotions aspect? I feel like Corp Dev at big corps has structured promotions too...
If the CD offer is with an acquisitive company that you think will keep performing well, I’d take it in a heartbeat - unless you genuinely enjoy the painful parts of M&A, like responding to diligence requests at 1am, managing data rooms, or rewriting the CIM for the 1000th time. Based on the comp numbers you posted, it doesn’t even sound like there’s a significant pay difference, so I’m not sure why IB is still in the mix.
Of the firms you mentioned, I’ve interviewed twice with Amazon’s CD team and came away really impressed (unfortunately no offer from either process, otherwise would have jumped at the opp to work there). They’re very well-structured and have the scale to ensure specialization in each role. Their broader CD function is divided into corp dev finance (focused on modeling, valuation, and execution), integrations, and BD/sourcing. That separation allows the M&A folks to focus purely on execution without getting bogged down in tangential work. It’s a great setup if you want real reps on deals, although I can’t speak to WLB (which unfortunately seems to be inversely correlated with the quality of the deal reps).
One piece of advice: make sure the company you’re joining actually does deals. Sounds obvious, but I got burned badly with this in my current role. Using Amazon as an example again, they’re active, have a clear internal mandate, and a huge cash pile (~$100B), so you’re guaranteed to get good deal reps and exposure to some interesting workstreams. As a general rule of thumb, I'd avoid hybrid strategy/CD roles at smaller, growth-stage companies - I'm in one now and spend most of my time on random projects that have nothing to do with M&A. If the company hasn’t done a deal in the past year, odds are they’re not suddenly going to start now.
A couple questions for you as someone trying to pivot out of a stagnant role:
Appreciate the detailed response — really helpful perspective, especially on making sure the team is actually active on deals (seems obvious but it’s crazy how many CD roles end up being glorified strategy gigs, like you said). I should be fine though, the offer is for an industry titan, and I'm pretty sure I'll get the offer at the cloud oriented firm as well.
To answer your questions:
I got pulled into these processes mainly through a combination of warm referrals and a few super targeted cold outreach. I tried the mass LinkedIn route early on but had pretty mixed results too — it’s just too noisy, unless you have a referral. What really worked was identifying specific teams that I knew were active (recent deal announcements etc.), finding folks on those teams (usually seniors, but sometimes mid-levels too), and sending very tailored cold emails that referenced recent deals or company strategy moves. I probably had a ~20–25% response rate, and once you get one convo going, people are pretty willing to refer if you sound credible and show you’ve done your homework. Would recommend trying to get a warm referral 10 times out of 10. Also, cannot stress this enough : make sure they're actually buying / selling stuff, else you'll end up reaching out to a bunch of stagnant teams and that's a waste of everyone's time. The referrals start becoming more and more important the higher up you go in terms of CD teams, and I'm not blowing my own horn, but FAANG ++ is basically the top of the food chain when it comes to CD, in terms of dealflow, comp etc.
As for making the leap from RX consulting to F500 — no "M&A" experience on paper (IB etc), but I leaned hard into the transactional nature of the debtor/creditor work. Stuff like working with distressed companies through sales processes, creditor negotiations, intercreditor dynamics, etc. RX consultants act as bankers sometimes, so I had that going for me. Wasn't good enough to get into a T1 RX consultancy unfortunately lol, but the jump is possible from even T3 / B4 RX consulting. I didn't have much difficulty. It also really helped my networking, most CD teams are familiar with RX consulting players. From there, the combination of F500 CD and RX work made me pretty damn competitive for the top CD teams.
Very helpful, thanks
Is Amazon really active in corp dev these days?
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