Making Sacrifices & Career Outlook

In my early 20s and through most of my first year as an associate in UMM PE. Enjoying the role much more than banking and find the work to be interesting, complex, and full of opportunities to learn more about how a business is run and everything that goes into it. Very appreciative of the opportunities I've had some far, especially coming from a middle-class background and not having any connections to high finance. 

However, I'm slowly coming to terms with how much this job really demands from you and how that changes as you progress. Not just at my firm, but from other friends in PE/IB and anecdotal experiences, it seems that the grind lasts a lot longer than most would expect. Of course, as you become more senior, you gain more responsibility and delegate more menial tasks to juniors, but you're still largely expected to be available 24/7, and this is notwithstanding the fact that at many firms your associate years could last 4-6 years on top of the 2-3 from IB. Even at the VP level, the job hardly gets much easier from my understanding. Truly seems that it's likely not till your mid-to-late 30s at most firms where you can expect an assemblance of work-life balance. I guess this is what's been on my mind as I think about future career progression. As I said, I do enjoy the job and am appreciative of all opportunities thus far, however I'm not obsessed / in love with the work (which I don't expect in any corporate type of job) and am not one of those people who loves the nonstop grind. Additionally, and this is of course not always true, but most people at my firm and others who have made it past that stage are severely beaten down (out of shape, aged terribly, lack of family and other relationships, hobbies, etc). Know this probably comes off as very judgmental, but it's meant to be an honest observation of my experience in finance and what I can expect down the road. At the end of the day it's an inherently difficult career to manage, where you can be working continuous 15+ hours/day and then having to decide if you want to spend the 1ish hour of free time a day on your health, partner, friends /family, or a hobby (difficult to have it all here + perform well and not get burnt out). Combine that with the fact that a lot of the times it's difficult to even make up for it on the weekend given uncertain nature of the job and trying to plan things in advance. Most of the people that do well and can persevere through with their health and relationships intact seem to be the extreme type A archetypes that love the grind as I referenced earlier, which I actually respect a lot but it's just not me. 

Last observation is that it seems that the needle continues to get pushed back further in terms of pathway to future career progression and the competitive nature of the field. Talent is continuing to flood into high finance / law type roles, despite PE as an asset class downsizing and older partners not planning to leave their post any time soon due to rising retirement ages and advancements in healthcare (don't blame them either, hard work paying off from people that built a lot of the well-known firms today). A lot of the higher ups reaping the rewards in PE now joined when the industry was relatively new, exciting, and full of a lot more risk. I don't feel like that same excitement and outlook still exists today at the junior level when looking to the future. With that said, I've grown more interested in potentially pursuing a financial strategy or operating role with a start-up or growing business / industry but still thinking through things (recognize those roles have downsides as well and are also not a walk in the park). The grind vs. reward of PE/IB simply doesn't seem to be nearly as close to what it was years ago. This post is meant to be an observation of my thoughts so far and curious to hear what others in a similar position think as they look towards the future of their careers. 

TLDR; PE is interesting, but is the grind worth it in a shrinking asset-class with incrementally less upward mobility and work that has become less and less exciting? How will continued influx of talent + strides made in AI affect the general job outlook here and other fields that require similar skill sets.