Development Skillset

Your responsibilities as a development analyst really depends on the firm. Some development firms have an acquisitions team that only focuses on acquisitions and once financing/acquisition is complete, the development team takes over (Tishman and Lend Lease come to mind at least in my area). Other developers have one development team where you will be able to work on every aspect of the deal life cycle - acquisitions/financing, entitlements/permitting, design, and lease up/sellout (Skanska, UDR). When you're asking about the day to day, I assume you're asking about the latter since acquisitions is pretty straight forward. As a developer you're really more of a project manager. No one single party has the expertise to develop a property because there are different phases of development with different skills needed. Lets walk through a development from cradle to grave and look at what you as the analyst may be responsible for. Let's say your firm has targeted a site to acquire, your firm needs to know 1.) what can be built on the site (either as of right or through entitlement)?, 2.) What price makes sense?, and 3.) How will you finance it? You as the analyst may need to 1.) reach out to zoning attorneys and 3rd party lobbyist/consultants to figure out what variances you can potentially achieve 2.) based on the different variance scenarios, you would build a proforma to back into a purchase price and maybe get some preliminary construction costs from your construction team, and 3.) reach out to your debt/equity advisors, banks, or capital partners and send them your model and possibly a pitchbook to see if anyone would be interested in the deal. If your firm is big enough, there may be an investment committee that you need to write investment memos for. Assuming your firm wins the deal, the next phase would be facilitating the closing process ie financing, due diligence etc...During this phase you'll work with your capital partners and send them whatever they need in order to finance the transaction (appraisals, insurance etc...), there may also be due diligence items you have to coordinate such as environmental tests, soil tests etc... After the deal closes, your firm needs to design the new development so that your zoning attorney/consultants can pitch it to the city/zoning boards. During this phase multiple parties will be involved (zoning attorneys/consultants, architect, and sometimes a GC depending on if your firms does design-bid-build, design-build, or whatever. Basically your design team/architect along with the GC will design something and then send it to the zoning attorney/consultants for feedback. The zoning attorney/consultants will softly market it to city officials and the neighborhood for feedback to gain support and then the design team will make changes based on the feedback. A lot of coordination is needed between zoning team and design team and a lot of your responsibility as an analyst here will be to coordinate all the parties and follow up on missing items. Once entitlement is granted, then your firm will need to pull demo/building permits which you may or may not work on depending on your firm. Technically the construction team is responsible for permits, but your firm may have an in-house construction team, so your job may also be to help pull the permits. In order to pull permits, there is a list of bullshit the building department will need, so you as the analyst will need to coordinate the different parties to get all the right documents needed such as civil engineering plans, MEP plans, structural, bullshit construction safety guides, approvals from different city divisions such as water/sewage/fire department etc.. Once permits are pulled, then construction can begin and for the most part your role should be pretty relaxed since the construction team and subcontractors basically take over. However, there will likely still be a lot of coordinating you need to do between different parties because there will likely be changes in the design either mandated from your firm or by the city. Once construction is complete, then you may work on the sell-out/lease up which is likely just coordinating with sales teams, but shouldn't be much heavy lifting here. The smaller the firm, the more likely it is that you will be deeply involved with every aspect since your team is small. As I mentioned earlier, a developer is really just a project manager, so your main function is to coordinate different parties and make sure the entire process is running smoothly. Although this may sound easy because you technically have "experts" working on each part of the phase, what's important as a developer and a development analyst is being able to catch mistakes and taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. It is your (the developer's) money on the line, so you need to make sure that everything is how YOU want it and that every decision that is being made is from a financial lens. If your architect sends you a design that doesn't maximize profits for whatever reason, you as the developer need to be able to look at the design and ask the right questions or explain how it can be better. You'd be surprised how incompetent some "professionals" are.

As for switching to development as a junior, there is no straight path. I had a very strong finance/real estate background and got jobs at a couple developers at the junior level. It really depends on what the developer is looking for. If the firm has a lot of projects in the works, they may be looking for someone with a more technical background such as engineering or architecture. If the firm just sold some properties and is looking to go on an acquisition spree, then someone with finance is preferable. Since you are at the junior level, having any type of real estate experience will help you get into development. I think your experience in acquisitions especially at a larger asset manager, will make you very attractive to developers of all sizes. I got an offer at a very large developer and I had less experience than you at probably a less prestigious firm. My advice is to just apply/network and see where the interviews take you. Since you have very relevant experience, I think your story will matter more. However, expect some type of modeling test or case study.

As for pay, assuming you are in one of the major cities, I think ~$100k-$120k all in is reasonable given your experience. The bigger firms will be more willing to pay you more. As for hours, it really depends on your firms deal flow and pipeline.