What do I have a shot at realistically?

I'm a late 20s software developer looking to make a career switch into finance. I don't want to continue programming and I find markets much more interesting than code. I've decided to apply to M7 schools.

Top 100 US Bachelors of Science in CS 3.7 GPA 3 years working as a software lead at startups and 3 years as a contributor at an F500 before that. URM I took the GMAT in college and scored 40Q 50V. I figure I can raise my Q significantly because I didn't really prepare.

What I want to know is what roles haven't been already closed to me for post-MBA? I know that something like PE is out because of my background. I'm quite interested in Equity Research, but I've been advised that isn't such a good route to take. I don't know if I could handle the stressful hours of IB. Management in tech seems obvious, but I don't think I'd find it very interesting.

Any advice is appreciated. Thank you.

5 Comments
 

What I've noticed about successful Quants is that they tend to have PhD level math proficiency. They're aces at stats and advanced math. I'm probably a better coder than most of them, but the math is more important. I'm simply "okay" at math, I already know I couldn't hang with most Quants. At least that's the impression I've gotten.

 

what about proficiency with the neural net software and "data cleaning". A lot of the math can be left up to the deep learning neural net....if you are good enough at setting those up, you don't need to be math phd

just google it...you're welcome
 

What are you interested in within finance? Do you like working with people? Do you like working in excel? Do you want to manage teams? Do you want to do more big picture stuff? What kind of work life balance do you want?

PE is the obvious one that's most likely out (I won't say never, but for this exercise it's out).

Have you looked into consulting (would give you wide exposure for a year or two post-MBA assuming you jumped ship after that)?

 

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