Feel no interest in PE after ~2 years in IB
So I feel a bit lost at the moment. PE is clearly the most obvious next step after ~2 years in TMT M&A IB in terms of pay jump / title promotion, etc. But I just don't want to spend the year 25-27 of my life as a PE associate chained to my desk the same way I have been for the past 2 years.
I am considering a consulting lateral or a move to strategic finance / FP&A (not corp ev); but this seems like it would be a bit of 1 step forward 2 steps back in terms of life progress. I definitely want to go to B-School and my long term goals are operational in nature, not investing/financial services related. I am just going through a lot of internal friction right now with all these openings in my inbox for Growth Equity / PE.
Will the FP&A roles have similar pay to PE?
Base wise yes but TC after bonus, no
If you leave high finance for FP&A, do you think you would ever be able to get back if you wanted too?
Too many people in finance overrate optionality and delay making real career decisions. If you don’t want an investing seat, why not start exploring what actually interests you now? At some point, you have to specialize, and contrary to popular belief, gaining industry-specific knowledge early is a competitive advantage, not a limitation.
For example, if you’re considering strategic finance and think you’d enjoy it more than PE, it’s more than worth it to make the switch to corporate roles compared to PE ones especially when you’re still earning a great salary relative to most professionals. The idea that you’re “leaving money on the table” ignores the trade-off in quality of life and personal interest, you’d be choosing a well-paying role that actually aligns with what you enjoy, rather than grinding for a PE associate role with worse hours, more stress, and less fulfillment.
The greatest perk of IB is setting a high salary baseline for future roles. Many corporate exits from banking still offer strong comp, career growth, and stability—so if you already know you don’t want PE, why force yourself into a role that doesn’t align with your long-term goals?
At the end of the day, it’s not just about maximizing comp, it’s about finding out what you actually want to do.
I was the same exact way brother. I realized PE is just banking 2.0 but actually 10x worse, and I already hated banking as is. PE was always my plan but I jumped ship.
After my 2 years in banking and finally deciding not to do PE because I wanted to enjoy my twenties, I recruited for strategic finance. I think I got super lucky in that my first full year in strategic finance I made $260kish total comp (massive bonus that I was suprised about), base is $150k. Theres really good gigs out there just need to get lucky on postings / timings.
what geography / industry? how did you find the job?
Top COL City (San Fran, LA, NYC) Industry is non-tech. Found the job on linkedin.
Damn if that $260k is all cash, you absolutely knocked it out of the park in finding an outlier in terms of comp, esp w/ only 2 YOE
Thank you! Yes all cash very very happy with it and honestly just insanley lucky. What would be the norms for strategic finance post 2 years of banking, around $160-$210k?
Wow that is amazing to hear. I am almost certain I would be miserable in PE even if I perform well at the job. May I ask what your industry is / is it a public CO / if so roughly how large? Also do you work on M&A or is it all/mostly forecasting/budgeting? Thank you
Edit: Just saw all the additional info.
With that being said, how have hours/culture been? Do you see a path to promotion?
Thank you! It is private, worht around $15bn. I do not work on M&A, as we have our own corporate development team. My role is mostly forecasting, budgeting, and working directly with CFO and CEO on any analysis they need.
Culture has been absolutely amazing. I work maybe 35 hours a week (whole team logs off at 1pm on Fridays).
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