Am I making the right decision for my long-term career?
Background: Graduated undergrad from a university strong in business and computer science. Official major is economics, but do have strong math/stats background and developed an interest for coding
I interned at a notable tech company the summer as a backend software engineer (I finagled my way through the interviews, have good personal projects) and while it was really cushy, I felt like the team wasn't very motivated and career growth was stagnant after a few years. I decided to gear myself up to utilize my business knowledge and search for a FT job in finance. I ended up at an AM building out risk models that portfolio managers use when making decisions. I like it - it's very quantitative and I get to code. While I'm not on the team that does purely research to make strategies, I do get a lot of face time with portfolio managers and I feel like I get to make a difference. I have been working in this role for 1 year
This past week I got an email from a different team at my prior company asking if they would like to talk about a data science role. During my time there I've built a decent amount of rapport and showed my interests to this group, so I definitely think that if I wanted to, I could make the jump. However, I have outlined a few issues with my current situation.
If I wanted to, is it too early to switch careers? I know it looks bad if I do so this early, and there might be a possibility the tech firm could hire in the future. In addition, I am actually quite satisfied with my current job.
If I switch, I most likely will get an MBA. I've talked to my parentals and they are very supportive of me getting a top 3 MBA if I can get in. Seeing how this whole stats thing is the craze nowadays, I might have an edge. Not too sure what would happen after the 2 year vacation however.
The current company I work for doesn't really care of MBAs, and I've been working towards the CFA. I feel as though if I get out of finance, I do not think I could ever go back as a portfolio manager (researcher, maybe). The company I work for really values hiring people for the long run (lateraling has been done before) and doesn't really seem to buy into the 2 years > 2 years > MBA thing.
I"m overall not sure what I want. I love the aspects of finance, but yet I feel like I can make a lot of change in the data science role. The people at my current job are extremely smart and helpful, but I would have a lot more flexibility in option 2.
Data science role would almost very likely pay more (maybe like 30%?), but unsure how quickly that would get outpaced in my current role.
What would you do in my situation? Honestly at crossroads what I think will be the best for me as I wouldn't mind how each path plays out, but I may be missing a pro or con
