Q&A (Senior Analyst): REPE -> Deported from the US -> Working for Oligarchs

Tl;dr: target school -> repe -> deported and moved back home -> gets lucky networking -> now at a shop that does development deals for UHNW oligarchs from developing countries.

Hey guys,
Been meaning to do this for a while and being drunk on a Monday offered a good excuse. As a long-time lurker, I wanted to share my own unconventional story and host an Q&A as my small token of appreciation and contribution to the WSO community.
I've been trudging along and eating shit for the last few months and have just turned the tide in my favor recently with a bit of hustle and pure luck.
I will structure the story so that it answers the most commonly asked questions on Q&A.

Background:

Graduated from a target and worked for a REPE shop based in LA/Atlanta/Boston/Dallas/Phoenix out of school. I did acquisitions/dev and covered greenfield dev, value add, core plus and core assets across the US. We were on the GP side and had some well-known LPs backing us. I networked my way into the position (the timing was perfect since they were just about to look for a new analyst).
Comp was $80k all-in...no equity or co-investments. Was here just shy of two years before it happened..

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Deported:

I don't hold a US citizenship -- so I was working on a student visa. Long story short, I did not receive a new visa and was told that I could no longer work. Felt crushed, said bye to my friends, packed my shit, paid a fee to break my lease, tied up some loose ends and left the country in about a week.

Returned Home:

Moved back into my mom's home, reconnected with some old buddies and abused substances for a week or two. Started back on the grind after that. Reached out to alumni, family, friends, recruiters as well as cold calling a short list I had compiled. Spoke with a lot of firms but the shop that stood out was one my uncle referred me to. The uncle had a family office and invested through this shop.
The shop had around 10 investment professionals, most from investment banking and real estate development backgrounds (US/UK). I liked the people I met on a personal level and clicked pretty fast.
I didn't think too much of this shop at first since I couldn't even find a website/none of the investment professionals had the firm named on their Linkedins (e.g. they had "Associate at Real Estate Investment Firm" instead of "Associate at ‘Deportation Capital’").
Went through an informational interview, superday, dinner, etc. Learned that they primarily operate on behalf of international institutional capital as well as UHNWs. I would say we operate like a family office.
We (accepted the offer) are product and market agnostic and have a pretty cool mix of real estate holdings. Cooler projects include marinas, vineyards, urban parkades, agricultural farms and gated communities. More vanilla projects include standard multifamily and senior housing (US SH is a big part of the portfolio) as well as trophy condo developments. Most deals we close on are sourced off-market through relationships and done with local partners. We take at least 85%+ equity. Some of the projects have been rezoning plays while others have been ground up devs.

Observation: Out of all the baller sounding deals, vanilla MF/SH developments and land lease plays seem to have had the best historical returns. The rest of the asset are simply ‘preferred’ by our investors for whatever personal reasons.

I have started here not so long ago and have not been disappointed with the work or people so far. It is basically what I did back at the old shop: acquisitions, asset management and some project management. Most of my time is spent underwriting new deals, speaking with vendors, performing dd, etc. Pretty standard stuff here. I'm scheduled to travel around the continent once or twice per month to our projects.

Comp is $85k all-in with co-investment options in $25k increments as a 3rd year analyst. You also receive equity/commission in deals/capital you source (I have not sourced any yet). As one of the two most junior people on the team, I find the projects/cross-border element interesting and am happy I am learning a lot. The work is fast paced and it's also cool rubbing shoulders with certain notorious figures. I'm very excited to be in the position I am right now.

I will be sticking around for the foreseeable future and am happy to answer any questions.

Thanks for the read.