IB vs Tech as Comp Sci Major
Would you guys ever consider doing IB over tech or product management roles if you could? Seeing a lot of threads pop up like this and starting to have doubts about my path. I'm a computer science major and consider myself competent enough to recruit for tech, but I was interested in IB because I was interested in finance and learning the soft skills and getting connections that I feel that tech experience just lacks. But after speaking to some jaded FT analysts, my thoughts are more doubtful - especially considering my upcoming Junior SA. I know lifestyle-wise of course tech is better, but just wondering about thoughts from older more experienced folk in the industry. Just a bit confused on how I should think about this.
What is the real upside to an IB analyst experience in terms of learning over tech/PM roles? Is tech generally considered the grass greener path?
Also, sorry I know this question has been asked to death, but most answers I've seen are more pertinent to the lifestyle/comp/career trajectory/etc. rather than learning.
Following
following as well – in the same position
CS major at Top 5 CS school pursuing banking--thought I could provide some thoughts.
The main reason I'm pursuing banking over cs is that it feels, at least to me, a lot more dynamic. Sure, the hours are shit, but for me I just can't sit through hours and hours of debugging. Having done SWE in the past, I just felt like I could never fit into the type of people that pursue SWE. I think having spoken to older people in the same position, they also point to the ability to be more of a generalist across the tech industry, rather than focusing on a specific subsector. Just the ability to better communicate and understand the landscape of the industry is something that is very appealing, and may fit a certain type of person over someone who pursues SWE.
CS major here. Did banking because of the same thought process. Regret it every day tbh, wish I had stayed in tech
If you don't mind me asking, did you pursue engineering in banking or just IB?
Could you expand on this? About to go into my SA but I’ve been doing that same debate since I got to college and find it hard to see myself doing the sheer hours sometimes
Would you say your personality aligns more towards those in tech than those in finance (or at least the stereotypes)
Majored in CS and grew up doing computing olympiads etc.. Agree with what the above poster said. Finance is just a lot broader and through it, you get to learn about many industries, geopolitics, and the world at large. CS is really on the opposite end where everything you do is very focused and specific. After interning in both I naturally gravitated toward finance as it gives me a lense to understand the world and that's interesting to me.
Sure the hours/pay ratio is phenomenal in swe but what you get in work-life balance you lose out in upward momentum. Many of my friends in CS after joining major FAANG companies have found themselves kind of lost in low-impact work with no real way out. Don't get me wrong, banking can also be low-impact and tedious but you pretty rapidly get to move onto more interesting and high-impact roles if you stick out the 2 years.
Above poster here, definitely agree. I also grew up doing USACO, AIME, etc. I think a big part of it is upwards momentum, it feels like the only exit ops for software engineers is senior software engineer or engineering management, while finance has a lot more high-impact and interesting exits.
What are tech's exit ops? Senior engineer?
Just joking, but I just have a feeling you can always go to tech in a better role after doing finance than going to finance after doing tech. Complete guess, might be right
If you go into tech after finance it would be in a very different capacity so the two really aren't comparable. Also if you're coming in at a
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