Move to BB Capital Markets Or Stay in Sector Coverage at Tier 3 IB?

Hi all, 

I'm at a fork in my career path and hoping that experienced bankers can provide some perspective / advice / guidance 

I have two IBD options, and I'm having an internal tug-a-war about which one to choose:

1. Join a bulge bracket sector agnostic capital markets team (private not public markets). Group works closely with sector bankers to develop capital structures and sell corresponding debt & equity to investors. I will have to take a step down to Associate 1, but all-in pay will likely be higher due to recent compensation increases and bonuses

2. Stay in sector coverage (just joined a few months ago via internal move) at a Tier 3 bank (think Asian, Canadian, European balance sheet banks). Deal flow is debt focused (IG DCM, Lev Fin). Will be promoted to Vice President in ~2 years or sooner, depending on performance

I'm juggling several factors in my head at the moment that I would like your perspective on:

• I am new to and interested in my current sector group, but deal flow is purely DCM / Lev Fin. I think it is feasible to move to a higher tier bank in 1 - 2 years after I develop sector knowledge and some deal expereince? Not sure if I would have to stay associate at a new bank given that it is extremely unlikely that I will have any M&A or equity financing experience.

• Current comp (both base and bonus) is moderately to significantly below street and has been for the past several years. Messaging on future bonuses is mixed by senior leaders but general feeling is that it can't get worse. Current base is ~USD200K for a Sr Associate and past bonuses have been 30%-60% of base

• BB bank is attractive for all-in comp, brand name and deal flow. However I was on a similar / more vanilla desk in the past (the BB product group has more interesting, complex, strategic deals). On my old desk, I was bored by the focus on refinancings and didn't have any modeling experience or sector knowledge. I looked to leave and recently succeeded in joining the sector group I wanted 

• Expected comp as 1st year Associate at the BB product group is ~USD170 - 180K + [75?]% bonus

• Product groups don't have the same recruiting funnels as M&A or sector coverage groups (move to PE, corp dev, etc is possible but significantly harder due to lack of modeling and lack of sector knowledge). To my knowledge, product bankers tend to stay in their product group for their entire careers

• IBD job market has been hot this past 1.5 years, but it was very difficult to get 1st round interviews at sector and M&A groups at other banks (I can count my 1st rounds on one hand). I'm not sure if this is due to formerly being in a product group or my bank's brand, but the feedback I could obtain during these first rounds is that my lack of technicals is not a good fit for a plug and play hire. Thus I did the internal move to my current sector group. 

• Career Goals: I would love to be C-suite in my sector or start my own company one day; but PE and other buyside are great back ups. The sector group would help me learn the sector and learn how these companies operate. Maybe this T3 sector coverage group can lead to a MM or LMM PE shop? Maybe an exit to industry? Currently, I do not see myself in banking 5 - 10 years from now

• Brand name & banking tier seem important, especially the more senior you are in your banking career, as several product and sector bankers at GS/JPM/BAML have joined clients as a C-suite executives (i.e. GS's ECM banker Linday Drucker Mann leaving to join a PE backed consumer company as CFO). Is this neccessarily true? Would this be an long-term incentive to go to BB capital markets if I want to be C suite?

• Private capital markets are hot right now and could be a promising career path (BoA expanding their private capital business, most BBs are developing exchanges to trade private securities, various fintech start ups). 

Do you have any thoughts or prior experiences that can broaden my perspective? Are there other considerations I am missing or any of my assumptions just wrong?

Thank you