Northwestern Engineer by education, Scientist by Occupation, Next: Investment Banking? Help!?

What kind of company do you work at?

The family friend who was originally an engineer and is now an MD at a top PE fund ended up in finance after first doing a few finance-related assignments at his engineering job, then moving to Lazard Freres. So it is possible.

I work in a startup biotech company in Chicago, it's developing novel methods of developing biofuels. We have technologies to make fuel for less than a dollar, and well, based on the funding, it'll be a success. If I stick with it, the company goes public, I can make my millions there... but I'm chasing happiness, not money. So yeah... Just testing the waters at this point. This job is ok, not great.

IT doesn't keep me up at night wondering what better stuff I can do tomorrow.

Where do I start? I've been doing plenty of financially related tasks in this company (being that it's a startup). Hmph, I'm so confused at the moment. :(

wait till after the ipo, then get an MBA and go to IB..

So you wanna walk away from millions of $ to go create pitchbooks for some douchebag VP ??

Is it all about money? I like the idea of working in an investment banking company - traveling, seeing new models daily, predicting markets, following the market... or am I romanticizing it a bit?

You are romanticizing it a lot. You will rarely travel. Even if you do, youll mostly sit in a corner and take notes instead of actually giving your input. Banking rarely concerns itself with the markets (except if it tanks and our jobs are in jeopardy, like right now). If you're looking for intellectual stimulus, my suggestion is to look into HF or PE. But first collect your money and go to b-school.

You don't think you deserve your bonus? Gotta change that mindset to go into banking.

Why don't you work for biotech VC? Trust me it's way more interesting that investment banking (unless you're a huge finance geek) and the lifestyle is great. Do you have a PhD? All the biotech guys in my fund have PhD's/clinical trials experience/patent experience. If you have the following qualification, you should make a good candidate. Breaking in is very difficult though, especially since VC jobs are hard to get

ibanking is notorious for NOT being an intellectually stimulating job. People do it for the money, that's it. Maybe some do it for exit opps into PE or HF, but mainly for the money. The work they do is boring as hell, why do you think they're called monkeys?

"but I'm chasing happiness, not money"...Isn't this usually what people exiting IB would say?

All you guys bring up a very valid points. I always thought an investment banking job is so much fun and all, I guess I have to talk to someone who actually knows something about investment banking. Ouch, that hurt. I don't have a PhD, I left Northwestern with a little less than two years before getting my PhD, but the technology that we developed was going to market and I couldn't miss this opportunity.

VCMonkey: What fund do you work for? I've never considered working for a fund or something. Wanna tell me a bit more?