Alvarez & Marsal TAS reputation

I have not personally worked for A&M TAS but spent a number of years in the industry before transitioning into analytics consulting:

1. A&M's reputation is solid within the finance world because they're the kings of the restructuring consulting space. Sure, they'll be less known to F500 companies, but most people who work in banking, etc. will know who A&M is. 

2. I'd say you're better off leaving now to get FDD experience rather than toiling in audit for another 2-3 years. Internal transfers are a bitch at the Big 4, so there's no guarantee that'll happen. Further, because A&M is a reputable shop, the Big 4 will absolutely take you back as a senior/manager in 2-3 years if you want to go corporate and need the branding back.

3. You'll get paid a lot more at A&M versus Big 4. I believe FDD still gets some % of hours billedat A&M, even if it's not as high as RX/PEPI, so at least when you're weekend plans are blown up by some dickhead banker that opens up a dataroom at 3 PM Friday, you'll theoretically get some compensation for it. Good luck with getting pseudo-OT pay or a market level bonus at the Big 4.  

4. Regarding deal size, the sad truth is a lot of FDD work is going to be shitty little rollups/bolt-ons. There is the chance at the Big 4 that you'll work on front page WSJ deals that you won't get at A&M, but that's the luck of the draw with staffing. You'll still have to deal with crappy little companies that do cash-basis reporting even at the Big 4 and that'll be a large chunk of the deals you do.

Just FYI, FDD work is not very strategic work. It's certainly more interesting than audit, but that's a very low bar. It's still primarily accounting work and a lot of your job will have similarities to audit (i.e. doing proof of cash to validate cash basis revenue - absolutely hated that shit). However, you will learn a lot of new skills, especially in terms of churning huge amounts of data quickly and understanding business drivers, that you'll have less exposure to in audit. You'll also learn some deal concepts and work with bankers/PE guys, which can be helpful if you want to go down that path. Just know going in it's still going to be a decent amount of grunt work and it's not going to be your dream job if you're trying to move away from accounting. I still recommend it because I learned a shitload in FDD and it absolutely helped me land where I am today, but don't expect it to be true strategy work or anything along the lines of financial modeling/investing. If you really want to go down that path, there will be another lateral step required of IB, most likely, to get where you want to be, but FDD will absolutely be relevant for that step - certainly moreso than staying in audit will.

Hope this helps!