I have an undergrad in mechanical engineering and a master’s in aerospace engineering. I’ve been working in middle office risk/treasury quant type roles for the past 4 years - started in model validation and now I’m in treasury.
I didn’t know much about the landscape of finance when I started, I kind of just took what I could when I graduated and knew finance generally paid better than engineering roles where I live (Toronto)
I’ve learned more over time and I’ve been trying to get into more front-office roles like AM or S&T (had interviews and conversations with MDs in the past) but haven’t been able to solidify anything.
I’m trying to figure out where to go from here and which roles would fit my background. I was thinking of writing my CFA to get a more complete finance knowledge but I’m not sure if that will give me an edge or not for AM or S&T.
I kind of feel like I’ve missed the boat at 30. I would love some perspective from people with similar backgrounds or insight.
I’m an engineer based in Canada who was able to pivot directly into front office finance roles without any connections/nepotism or references. Worked 2 years in corporate banking and now switching to the Buyside. The way to do it is simple, the actual execution is the hard part.
Heres the 3 things you need to switch with no connections:
1) At minimum, CFA L1 cleared but L2 would be best. L3 is not needed, if you have L2 and the below points, you will land interviews for almost all roles you apply for.
2) Financial Modeling Course. Theres a multitude of them. I’ve seen WSP, Financial Edge and BIWS. I strongly recommend BIWS but this is subjective. Learn to model 3statement, DCF and LBO. The rest is just icing on the cake. Knowing the technicals really well goes hand in hand with modeling so that is also important.
3) Clean and well formatted CV, which goes straight to the point and is easy to see you have what is needed to work in finance ie: cfa, modeling and ideally some solid finance exp which it seems you have.
This is a simple and straightforward recipe and trust me, it really works. The hard part is actually putting in the work to get it done.
Added bonus if you have strong connections to front office obviously. That will only help.
Happy to answer any other questions.
Thanks man, this is super helpful. I’ll probably sign up for L1 and eventually L2 since my work covers the cost.
I have several questions:
- What was your role prior to pivoting? Did you just apply directly to roles and landed a position that way?
- When you finished the financial modeling courses did you just add them to your skills part of your resume?
- Did you try initially pivoting into S&T or AM?
- What is your comp like in corporate banking? I’m currently at 123k base + 17-23% bonus so I’m curious how the comp compares to where I’m at currently?
- What role are you moving into on the buy-side? What’s your expected comp for this role?
I worked 1 year as a strategy/operations analyst for a large corporate after graduating and then landed the CB role. Yes applied directly and got the role.
After the course, I actually put it on its own separate line with a few bullets under it showing exactly what models I completed and what the case studies were. This is a critical part to landing competitive roles so you can’t have it hidden at the bottom of your cv in the skills section. It will be overlooked. This falls into my point 3 from above.
Never tried for S&T. Landed a sell-side role so that’s what I accepted. It is extremely unlikely to go directly to buyside as engineer without prior sell-side experience first.
I only have an undergrad and 2 years experience. I quit right before my 2nd pay bump for Y2 but as Y1 comp was 85k base and 25k bonus.
Don’t want to give too much away here but its a canadian pension(pretty much the bulk of the buy side roles in Canada) and TC would be around 160-200k depending on bonus for analyst. Expecting it to scale up fast from here
This worked in 2021- mid 2022. Doesn’t work anymore.
This sounds like me 3 years ago. Graduated in industrial engineering. Worked in Treasury out of college for 3 years before transitioning to AM. CFA is essential. Also highlighting your presumable ability to code/powerbi is advantageous given the hype around AI/tech which is currently transforming front office. This is a skill set rarely found in FO outside of quant.
What’s your comp like? I’m at 150k TC so not sure I’m not sure if it’s worth it if I get knocked down to an Analyst level.
Most buy side analyst roles should be 150k+ at least in the canadian pensions. But I wouldnt think about it as short term. Yes if you take a cut or no increase it would suck but the growth potential in both salary and career progressions is much higher so long term it is 100% the right move.
I'm in Australia at a pension so may be slightly different, but tc is 180k aud. Though the upside is quite attractive. The path to vp in 5-7 years is well treaded and tc gets to 350k-400k.
Any reason why so many Indian in Canada?
loopholes in immigration system
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