New Grad: BB IB vs Software Engineer at Amazon
Hi All,
Long time lurker here and wanted to crowdsource some advice. I’m a recent grad from a target school with offers as an investment banking analyst at a bulge bracket bank and a SWE at Amazon. I’m pretty torn between the two paths, and have considered a litany of variables (WLB, initial comp, comp ceiling, optionality, etc) but there doesn’t seem to be a clear answer.
If it means anything, I'm a CS major with three previous buyside internships. I'm okay with coding and okay with grunt work in banking. In particular, I'm looking to hear from people who could have gone down both paths themselves / those who made a pivot from one path to another.
TC for banking is ~140k and SWE is ~ 150k. I like working hard, don't mind being political, and am fairly entreprnuerial.
Posted this on Blind (search up SWE vs IB: New Grad, WSO doesn't allow me to paste links) and got one side of the discussion but that's a tech focused platform so wanted to post here as well.
Thanks!
While looking into all the variables can make the choice seem difficult, I think the decision ultimately comes down to one single factor. Long-term, would you rather be in tech or high finance? Which career/environment excites you more? At the end of the day, that will matter more than slight variances in comp. There’s never going to be a “correct” answer for whether banking or tech is better, just like there isn’t a clear answer between banking or consulting, which is why your choice must be qualitatively based on your own interests. Also, keep in mind that you could probably eventually make your way from IB to tech in a Corp Dev or Finance & Strategy role.
I would find it hard not to take Amazon in this situation. Your hourly pay is like double.
Yeah but Amazon is known to have rough hours in the SWE world. Still might be better than IB though.
Gotcha, what hours roughly?
Just my two cents. Have friend who went to Amazon and burned out in a year. They’re pretty cutthroat in their SWE group, so while you’re hours might be better, your boss is still going to be an A-hole.
Yeah I remember seeing your post on Blind yesterday. Looks like the one guy who works at Better.com worked in both the IB --> PE and SWE paths, and he seemed overwhelmingly in favor of tech.
However, moving from IB to SWE is feasible, but going the other way around is more difficult. Maybe you should spend a year in IB to see if you like it. If you don't, just recruit for SWE jobs again. If you already have an Amazon offer now, you probably have the skills to get an offer again at another company, given you keep your coding skills sharp.
I was in a similar spot back in undergrad. Decided to go work at Amazon. Hours are worse than most in the industry, but my I never worked over 50, except for one or two oncall rotations. Left after 2.5 years to Google working like 20 hours a week with 315 salary+bonus+stock.
The decision should boil down to - what do you want to work on and where are you going to be happy? You can leave Amazon after 1 year with a nice raise to a much better software company. You can also grind in finance and make more money most likely.
You can take a few paths with software, one of which is to continue actually writing code, where you’ll most likely cap around 500k. You’ll hear about guys making way more but that’s basically pure luck. IPOs (rarely actually work out in your favor, have plenty of friends at Uber/Lyft who owed more in taxes than their RSUs were worth). Switch to management and you can make more. Sales is an option if you’re a people person, having technical background is a huge advantage. Managers at Amazon will make 3-800k. I know one Sr. Manager who was making 800k. After that it’s director/VP which is a lot of luck to get there. 7 figures at Amazon. Facebook pays the most if that’s your calling.
But again, it’s gonna boil down to what you want and where you’ll be happy/succeed.
Bump
SWE for sure. Not even a tough decision in my opinion. I would 100% be an SWE at a FAANG if I could, but I'm just not a good enough programmer. Had to settle for IB. As an SWE at Amazon your TC should be comparable if not higher than at BB IB when you take equity into consideration, and your hours, regardless of whether they're bad for a tech company, cannot be as bad as IB on a sustained basis.
I am a PM in big tech who interned in IB.
I'm lucky to know both sides, and this is a tough decision. People here don't know how cutthroat Amazon can be as a SWE, and even though IB can be tough, they're not going to PIP you 6 months in.
I think if it were any big tech company than Amazon, I would take the tech offer. Since it is Amazon, I would think about what you enjoy more and where you want to be in 10 years. Do you want to be in PE? Go finance, Want to be a founder? Probably SWE, but IB is doable as well.
What team would you be on in Amazon? Talk to your prospective manager about the role.
Heavily considering going the route you did with PM - would love to hear about things like your rationale, career outlook, approach to recruiting, and explanation of the switch
Hey - just logged in for the first time in a while. Sorry I missed this. Are you still curious? I can certainly answer if so.
SWE. You can easily exit into PM making 10% less than a SWE but potentially bring in 900k a year at the higher levels. You can also become a quant at an HF making more than majority of people in IB if you want..
Ultimately, this comes down to what you are most interested in. If I was smart enough to land SWE at a FAANG, there is 0% shot I'd pursue IB unless I was dead-set on PE. IB is great for smart-ish people who are very driven. But the daily tasks are tedious as hell for the most part and hours are brutal.
Also if you go down the SWE at FAANG route and then pursue an MBA, you will be a layup at pretty much every top MBA program. You are marketable for pretty much every career path besides PE. Whereas if someone from IB wanted to go into PM, SWE, Data Science, they would have a very uphill climb.
Curious if this is the US or UK? It's end of July, how do you have outstanding offers from an IB Analyst program at a BB when most analysts have already started training? Not doubting you or anything, just curious. Best of luck in your decision!
Hey guys, just wanted to update everybody on this thread that I ended up choosing SWE. I sometimes think about what my life would be like if I had gone the other path, but it's dangerous to think that the grass is always greener. Overall happy with my decision, realized SWE had insane job mobility both laterally and upward (lots of engineers don't actually want to go to management), as well as adjacent career paths (didn't realize the internal SWE --> PM switch was so porous, if you have basic communnication skills). Happy to answer questions here as well (though I'm not sure how much insight I could provide).
Thanks for the update. What do you think about the culture and hours at Amazon so far? Is it really as bad as other people say?
There is less psychological safety at Amazon than at other tech firms (both of the same caliber as well as at lower tiers). However, the job category is far more important than the specific company within the industry because you can always transfer out laterally.
Hours are 9-6 plus minus an hour. Culture is generally tougher than at other tech firms but soft compared to banking or trading.
Congrats on the offer. What was your approach to leetcoding for interviews? I'm starting with the Easy ones but I still find them kinda difficult lol. Any advice?
Yea just leetcode mediums. Grind that to 75ish leetcode mediums and you're good. You should be solving each medium in <20min without any help. You'll see patterns after a while that speed things up. I started solving them in <20min around 40-50ish medium questions.
Between your SWE and IB offers, which one was harder to get? I'm a freshman at a target studying CS/Econ, and though I've received multiple interviews from tech companies already, I've had zero luck in recruiting for finance. My goal, as it stands currently, is IBD, and I'm worried that I'll strike out, even though posts like these really put into perspective that SWE is the more exclusive career path and has a higher barrier of entry...?
Asperiores et quod ut a ex explicabo aut. Debitis ullam sed consequatur maiores est. Excepturi ea nisi vero sit ut aut. Quas ipsam officiis voluptas iste. Aut incidunt odit qui et pariatur.
Illo delectus et dolor enim. Officia corporis qui modi iusto.
Eos culpa qui velit et rerum iure expedita. Qui qui sed ea suscipit rem voluptatem. Commodi et nostrum eos nam accusamus. Iure a rem totam aut. Saepe atque aliquid nemo officiis qui.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
In omnis quos vel et vel placeat. Eum expedita fugit labore aliquam in voluptatem. Ut accusamus laboriosam repudiandae blanditiis est.
Non sed quia est voluptatibus reprehenderit sit nihil. Quas nulla consequuntur voluptatem mollitia odio repudiandae velit. Modi consectetur velit quia et. Sit ut et et voluptatum eligendi voluptate. Nostrum dolor tempore neque vel autem ipsam quasi. Illum repellat sapiente omnis corporis ipsa aut rerum. Labore iure est quia voluptatibus veritatis ab rem perferendis.
A molestiae reprehenderit nobis. Dolorem est neque ea hic ducimus. Mollitia molestias consequuntur necessitatibus dolorem sed. Quo quam eaque laudantium.