What field in financial services is easiest to break into finance from engineering

Hi, I'm looking at changing careers into finance having been a hardware/semiconductor engineer for 6-7 years. I'm in my early 30s now. I have a masters degree in electrical engineering and recently got a masters degree in finance from Harvard Extension (its a Harvard school for working professionals and way cheaper than a Harvard MBA). I've been trying to break into equity research buy side and have been looking for jobs for about 2 months now with no luck yet. I've been using linkedin extensively to contact people in the inudstry and build my network. My question is: what field is easiest for an engineer to break into finance that is not back office/tech jobs because I'm not a software engineer so coding does not come easy for me. I think once I get into finance it will be easier to move to groups I actually want to be in than it is now to break into the industry.

Is breaking into investment banking as an analyst easier than buyside ER with a Masters degree? What about other groups like Portfolio analytics or risk management. Any suggestions?

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Best Response

Thanks for the reply! Buyside because I thought SS would be hard for someone in my early 30s to break into. I was in semiconductor engineering, dealt with alot of the technical problem solving aspects. My job was in characterization of the semiconductor products. So the role itself was very technical but the way I've worded my resume has not gone into the technical depths of my job. Rather I focused on the revenue my job bought into the company in terms of maximizing the yield and manufacturability of products that led to revenues of $XXX and the wide base of customers and suppliers I had to interact with as well as with upper management. I am very familiar with the technology industry based on my background and I know many of the names in the sector and follow the stock of a few as well. I have very good math skills, I'm a very analytical person and I've done alot of modelling and valuation on my own.

Would you say SS ER is the easiest to get into for someone of my background?

 

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