Software Engineering -> IB

Upon initial read, it seems like the dislike of SWE far outweighs your desire to do IB. Definitely not going to try to sway you - do what you think is right of course but here's a few reactions to some of the points:

• WLB: Everyone, and I mean everyone says they don't care about WLB until shit hits the fan and you're on your third 90-100 hour week in a row. What you'll find is, generally, the more you progress in finance, the more people tend to prioritize WLB. What ends up happening though is that the desired WLB you eventually start to crave is almost impossible to attain without a significant pay-cut. Golden Handcuffs
• Normal People: While I can see techies not being the right group for everyone, I can assure you that if you join finance you're not going to magically make a 100 friends who all share your interests. Yes, finance folk tend to be more social but there's always weirdos everywhere.
  • You also don't have to be obligated to do social activities with coworkers if bars aren't their vibe. Can always go with other and new friends
• Vacation Vs. New Gaming PC: This may be more of an age thing - don't see many high-earning 30-40 yr old SWEs raving about the newest Gaming PC. My IB coworkers' financial goals were to buy luxury items and bottle service, not vacations.
• Pay Ceiling: Right about having a higher ceiling in high finance, but just remember that those who make it to the high ceiling are the top 1%. Those people a) live and breathe finance AND/OR b) have extremely sharp insights on markets that 99% of people don't have AND/OR c) are fantastic salespeople. (All high finance jobs at the top trend towards being sales - either selling your advice, firm, capital, relationships, strategic advantages, etc.)
  • There's absolutely no guarantee you will reach that skill ceiling - if anything, for the "average smart" person, my intuition is that comp in SWE is probably higher in the long run. Different story for the rainmakers though.
• Market & Interview Process: Getting an IB job is no walk in the park either. There's far more smart kids wanting to do IB than seats available. Also from my experience it seems finance interview processes tend to involve *slightly* more luck and nepotism, so even if you do everything right you could fall short. Firms overhired in 2019-2021 and now are realizing that through RIFs meaning it's not like the job market here is popping off either. 

Long story short this is a very classic case of the grass is greener on the other side. With all that said, if you are confident in your ability to become a top 1% financier and actually realize the high ceiling you crave then definitely need to start networking asap. Since you're a senior you might have to go to a smaller bank at first, but can always lateral after a year. This process would entail falling in love with reaching out to school alum, cold calling, mock interviewing, and studying finance technicals. MBA is also an option too but that has it's own challenges as evidenced by the severe lack of jobs available to MBA grads from even H/S/W. Even if you make it into IB from an MBA, there's no guarantee you'll love it and at that point will be harder to explore other opportunities.

Sorry if this wasn't super helpful but happy to dive deeper on anything. It seems like you should really figure out if IB is what you want to do as opposed to being a "not SWE" option - talk to actual career bankers rather than reading online and observe their quality of life.

At the end of the day, to hit the high ceiling of any profession, you need deep expertise/skill that 99.99% of other people don't have. Figure out where you're willing to put 10,000 hours and the money will follow. Good luck