Leaving S&T after 4 months? Am I making a mistake?

I currently am a 1st year S&T analyst at a BB. I won’t say what product I trade, but I’m in fixed income. I come from an engineering background and thought trading was going to be an interesting career. The work itself is somewhat interesting, but it doesn’t exactly excite me.

I also struggle with the lifestyle. I fully understand how easy I have it compared to IB, but it’s quite a change coming from tech and the limiting WLB/PTO of high finance, especially when my only true passion in life is backpacking/mountaineering. Small side note, but I really don’t want to live in NYC, and the product I trade is extremely limited to here.

One thing with trading I was told about but now see is how limited the skills you develop are. Yes, you learn how financial markets function and how firms/traders position themselves in them, but beyond that, most of the skills you learn (at least in my product) are so hyper-focused that you only become a domain expert who can’t really venture into industries/areas outside of that.

I do have an offer from an old job of mine that would push me back into a SWE/Data Science role in a MCOL city. I would be earning less, but I think for all the reasons I outlined earlier that it would be worth it.

Would leaving so soon be a bad decision? How do you let yourself be okay with giving up a career you worked so hard for and with such a high earning potential?


 

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