Career Advice IR/BO > BO/FO > IR/BO

Hello All, 

I am looking for some career advice.

Long story short, I went to a non-target school and changed my major to finance senior year, so I missed out on finance-specific internships. After graduation, I started in a different field, then fought tooth and nail to break into the industry. I’ve slowly traded up, and some time ago I finally transitioned from a back-office role to a hybrid back-office/front-office role. I don’t want to give too much information away, but in short, the team needed a back-office person who could work closely with them. The deal I negotiated was that I would also get to be involved in the deal process (modeling light, co-invests, some secondaries). When I switched teams, they told me it was an internal transfer and that I was ineligible for a salary increase.

Fast forward to now: I’ve been working 80–90 hours a week nonstop for a little over two years. Other than the culture, the role has been great and I’ve gotten a lot of exposure. This year, I pushed for a step function salary increase to compensate for the extra hours and additional responsibility. I fought hard for it but was ultimately told to kick rocks. After that, I decided to float my resume and have gotten a number of opportunities for BO/IR roles that would pay ~30% higher base and ~40% higher total comp.

I enjoy reading financial statements and thinking about companies from a tactical perspective. Lately, though, I’ve soured on the investment process in my current role. The diligence phase feels rushed, and we don’t get to step back and really think about the business. It’s more of a scramble to put together an IC memo, then trying to regurgitate as much information as possible so I don’t look unprepared in IC. Due to the deal I negotiated, it’s understood that this isn’t my primary focus, so I have to carve out time where I can. That usually means working on Saturdays, since Sundays are taken up by 10 hours of busywork, or putting in time late at night during the week. This holds true even when I’m the one pitching at IC.

My question is: is there any chance I can break into the deal side full time with my experience, or is it time to accept that path isn’t realistic? I’m in my early 30s, and I had pretty poor grades, so I think a top-10 MBA is out of the question.

Additional info / questions:

Before I took on this role, I was networking heavily, and someone told me I was crazy to leave my old role for the comp I was getting. The broad range was $100–200K, but I was averaging about 50 hours a week. Are people really making $500K+ at my age, or is that just the top 1%? What does the average PE professional in their early 30s actually make?

To be honest, I don’t mind the hours, but if I’m not being compensated appropriately, I feel like my time could be better spent elsewhere.