Big Tech Finance or IB

Hello everyone, I am from a non-target public school (think PSU, Wisconsin, Ohio State...). I recently got an intern offer in operations finance in a huge tech company (Amazon, Google, Microsoft) and also an investment banking intern offer at a lower tier investment bank (Nomura, Santander, D.A. Davidson). What opportunity would present itself better over the long run, pay, and work life? What would you rather start in and grow in the company?

5 Comments
 

Really depends on your goals / wants.

Big Tech Finance is great due to WLB, and culture. However, you are technically "back office" at Tech firms.

If you want to chase the larger paycheque, IB is a no brainer, even at Santander / D.A. Davidson (especially in this hiring environment).

I personally interned at Amazon in a hybrid Finance/Consulting team and decided to go down the IB path.

 

Of course choose investment banking.

Finance is back office in big tech. It’s just typical FP&A stuff, not much different from being a controller or FP&A at investment bank. Unless it’s a investing role for big tech’s internal venture capital or hedge funds, then it’s not worth it.

Or unless you don’t have any ambition and just want a 9-5 corporate life with an okay-ish salary.

It’s very impressive that you made to ibanking from non-target ! Congrats !

 

This is far from reality. Even in tech golden years, finance role isn’t given large equity. Not to mention the tech golden years is over. Meta just released news to cut all recruiter equity. Finance roles aren’t much better than recruiter in terms of priority within company.

Investment banking is just way better. 10 YoE ibanker easily make millions. It’s a path into being tech investors.

 

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