Hey,
I'm am VP trader working in one of the mid-tier banks in London.
I'm not very happy with my current role anymore, so looking to move on. Initially I was looking for other trading roles, but much to my surprise, I didn't find much. It feels like there are very, very few roles out there.
To make things worse, it feels like as a VP already, it's hard to move into a different trading area - in spite of having a really good CV & an exceptionally good P&L history to show for! But understandably, seems like most roles require experience trading that particular product, so I feel like I'm already pigeonholed into trading my particular product.
So after having been on the hunt for a few months, it feels to that what was more of an abstract fear in the past ("trading is going to disappear, e-trading will take over!") has really swiped away most jobs by now; and the few that remain are almost impossible to get, unless you have traded that particular product X before. This is really bad right now already, but I'm afraid it'll only get worse from here; e-trading will continue to grow, and each year of more seniority will make switching areas even harder.
That's why I've recently been contemplating going into IT, development specifically. I have a few offers from good buy-side names for such roles. The downside is that the salary of these is significantly lower than what I currently make. And most development roles seem to be in a similar area, financially - though there are a few out there that do pay extremely well, on par (if not better than) trading, though it's hard to plan how realistic it may be to get one of these in the future.
The upside is that, well .. tech will keep growing. It's very interesting & challenging. It's a lot more stable. And as someone with knowledge of markets/trading and IT both, I might be in a good position in terms of career development.
I'm strongly leaning towards taking on such a role, but the outlook of a 20-60% pay cut today (who knows about the future) is of course a big mental hurdle.
So just wanted to hear the opinion of fellow traders .. am I being an idiot here, giving up a more or less well paid role (though with very unclear future) to go into tech? Or would you agree that taking that cut today might still be the smarter choice, given where trading as such is heading towards?
Silly question - you know the answer yourself.
You are doing a job where you will be let go in 2-5 years potentially. Maybe you'll make it an extra 10 years and average $500k so $5m with a probability of 25% so $1.25m weighted average gains.
You are a VP so likely in your early 30s and have 30 years left of work, let's say you average $200k over that time, that's $6m with job safety. Do you take the wild gamble of $1.25m or the safe $6m with the potential of being a lot higher? (I don't count you being let go and finding another job, the more you age the more likely it is not to happen).
20-60% pay cut? I took a 65.5% pay cut, spent 2 years of lost earnings and MBA money, and a drop in seniority (used to head a team). I now make models as an associate working in PE and my peers are all 3-5 years younger. Regardless, I know I won't be a useless equity derivs guy and I'll have the necessary skills to have a long career. I knew all of that going in and didn't need any confirmation to see the writing on the wall of automation in my job...