Reconsidering banking after receiving offer... help?
So I'm a sophomore econ and math major at a target school, and I've been aiming for banking since the start of college. I'm now sitting here with a summer 2020 IBD offer at a good BB and completely doubting myself.
This semester in college has been rough because I overextended myself with courses and activities, and combined with recruiting, it was a super stressful time. The week of my superday was insanely hectic, and I was running on 4 hrs of sleep that week. After my interviews had finished, I confessed this to an analyst from my school, and he laughed and told me "to get used to feeling like this every day for most of the year".
More than just the lifestyle, after taking a computer science course this semester, I feel like my intellectual energy has been reignited. I feel like an idiot for not having done CS from the start because my end goal is VC and entrepreneurship, and I could definitely do that starting in tech. Also, tech pays better than IB and has a much better lifestyle. I'm sitting here punching myself in the gut wondering why the hell I didn't do it from the start. I was always quantitatively inclined and could have done it, but I really thought IB was the thing.
Has anyone been in my shoes before? I'm feeling so lost, and I know I should be happy with this offer but I can't help but feel that IB is for suckers and people who are going into tech have it figured out.
Same stage as you and I reconsider this all the time. Sometimes I get the sense that this is for people who don't know/can't see themselves doing anything else.
If you can handle the rigors of an economics and math program at an academically rigorous school concurrently, you can handle investment banking.
Thanks for your comment. My concerns are less about my ability to handle banking and more my concerns about whether banking is worth it or not. Like most people gunning for offers from the BBs, I don't see myself in banking long term. I can't say with certainty where I see myself in 20 years, but since tech is so interesting and is a booming industry, I definitely want to be in that sector somehow. I feel like given my quantitative background, I could have definitely done CS from the start, and the entry level jobs pay MORE than ones in banking and are usually 40-50 hrs/wk.
ok so why don't you spend your free time building your dev skills & working on projects & then recruit for FAANG, they will respect the BB IB background
also i'm pretty sure tech doesn't pay more (long term-- even short term after 3 years you're making more all-in in IB then you would as a 3y dev at FAANG)
No one will scoff at two years of analyst work at an investment bank, especially technology firms.
Have you considered an analyst stint in a technology group at a bank and a transition to venture capital before a potential MBA? Gives you the analyst experience with valuable exposure to an industry of personal interest while allowing for optimal optionality moving forward with your career.
Learning to build software is intellectually stimulating, and it's extremely rewarding when you finally figure something out after banging your head against the keyboard. With that being said, if you don't love building software it's gonna be tough. Hours will be better than banking, but like any job you need to consider culture. If you're not the guy who goes home and codes up a new grocery list app just for fun, or wants to go to hackathons and meetups on nights and weekends you may not like your team of co-workers. There are people who don't fit that stereotype, but you'd need to meet your team to know.
If VC is your goal consider that going from two years as a junior engineer to Associate at Accel/Sequoia/Kleiner/A16Z/Benchmark is probably not gonna happen. Going from GS or MS to an investing role is something that happens much more frequently, even if it only ends up being for a couple years before they place you in a finance role in a portfolio company. Why do they move you out? So you can get operating experience at a real company, which will be useful as a Partner/Company Board Member in the future. You are unlikely to get any business experience in a few years of engineering, unless maybe you transition into a PM role, but even then it's tangential.
Another route to VC could be engineer to founder to investor, in which case switching to CS and pursuing engineering roles makes sense. But you need to decide if that's a path you actually want to pursue.
Definitely positives and negatives around every job. Sounds like you've got the right idea though: IB if you want to be an investor in startups, CS if you want to be an engineer at startups. Just have to figure out if you are more interested in nitty gritty details of product, or overarching strategy of the company. Both can be great roles, but even in your own startup you will have to choose to focus on product or business eventually.
As far as being a PM, I personally can't think of a less fulfilling job. A lot of MBAs go into it since they want to be in tech and don't have the skills to code anything, but there's no magic in PM and product manager is the fast track to nowhere. Being the go-between for the technical team and the business people, trying to explain why you can't roll out this new feature idea by next week to the business folk while explaining to the engineers why they need to immediately shift focus away from a major project they've been working on for months sounds pretty dull. Factor in that you do very little real work (delivering something you did), spend a ton of time in meetings, and your best exit op is to convince some engineers you know to quit their stable job to come build your startup and you've got a recipe that could be a disaster. Or could be great if you pull it off.
If it turns out you love to code and want to stay in engineering, keep in mind salaries max out way earlier than high finance and ageism in the development world is real. After 35 (admittedly a long way off) people will expect you to be in management, taking you away from what you enjoy. You could love managing people and the product strategy work that leads toward more of a CTO role and be perfectly happy though, so it's not necessarily all bad moving away from development.
Dude, it’s a summer internship.
Grind for 10 weeks, get the return offer and glowing references, and the leverage your experience wherever else you want.
Here's the deal man. People going into tech certainly do not have it 'figured out.' Tech is alluring because of the strong culture and promised upside. How often does that upside happen? A lot has ot go right.
What's great about IB is that it cvan prepare you for any career afterwards. Working with and advising companies will help you develop strong critical thinking skills and learn how to help companies tackle and solve problems. not to mention you will develpp the fundamentals of finance and accounting and how to analyze different problems.
You can always leave bnanking and pursue other careers - I personally think it can open up a lot of doors. Think of it as a necessary evil if you want to. No one has ever doubted someone who has IB experience. But if you don't start in IB out of college, good luck breaking in. It is not easy (without getting an MBA). I think you should definitely take the job. if it isn't for you, you'll have brand name BB experience and be able to pivot elsewhere. It's an incredible starter job (despite the long hours of course).
First make sure you get some rest. it’s good approach this with a clear head. Second the whole notion the tech gets paid more than IB is flawed. Initially in your first five years tech may pay higher and tech also pays founders loads more money. However nobody is going to pay a software engineer as much as a banker 5 years in. ...Unless you luck out and get early stage stock options. Learning to code is extremely valuable, especially from efficiency standpoint in IB. So enjoy those classes.
You can always go back to software engineering someday. Banking is a more traditional route and you don’t get many chances. Plus it’s important to learn how the business world works
I think we are talking about two very different goals and with little overlap in life path. Both paths could get you to the same destination, but how you get there and what kind of person/leader you would be when you get there will be very different. So you have to pick what really works better for you based on who you really are.
Enjoying CS classes is one thing, but be honest with yourself and see if you really envision yourself as a code junkie. Do you think you have what it takes to compete with other programmers who probably have built multiple apps in high school? Do you think you can catch up with them in the next 2-3 years? If you really enjoy this, don't you think you would've stumbled upon it yourself back in high school? If you can't find yourself competitive, then you won't build a reputation and can kiss VC goodbye.
On the other hand, having secured an IB summer analyst offer is not a small accomplishment and maybe it says something about what you enjoy and what you are good at. Also, having a profound knowledge in tech + IB experience is a pretty good combination.
Based on the limited information, since you are a sophomore I think the logical path is to switch your major to CS or something and build your knowledge in tech while keeping your IB offer. And if you end up finding an opportunity that is much more appealing, it's not too late to switch your path then. Yes this would mean reneging your offer, which is fine. You don't owe the bank anything and that's the luxury you can afford at a target school.