Quitting finance for something else?
So I think I've peaked in terms of how far I'll ever go in finance and am pretty bummed that this career isn't working out, and looking for some advice.
Background: graduated from HYP 5 years ago and started on the trading floor at a MBB, then switched into a quant shop (eg DE Shaw, BW, etc) where I've been for the past 3 years (associate level). The trading role was pretty terrible, but my current job has been neutral to positive. The company and culture are actually pretty great, my team is relatively good, and the work is really interesting. Hours are great too, around 9am to 7pm most days.
The thing is, I've known since my first year that I have almost zero interest in finance/economics itself, and I think I've finally reached my limit in how far hard work/intelligence/basic finance knowledge will take me. My role is extremely varied - from powerpoints and excels, to writing responses and white papers, to in-depth research - but I haven't raised my hand to do any of the more analytical work in a long time because it's so uninteresting to me. Other than general news, I never read anything finance-related, and rarely do anything extra for work on top of my day to day duties. I don't care about making it to VP in a few years and certainly can't see myself as a portfolio manager down the line. I don't have any long-term career goals whatsoever because the apathy is real. I was never this uninspired and unambitious before finance, and I hate the feeling.
I feel really ungrateful that I have this objectively fantastic job and am still complaining, but admittedly even if I left finance I wouldn't know what I'd do, so I feel stuck. Has anyone been through the same thing and can share what they did? Is it worth exploring other areas of the industry, like corp dev? Or stick it out, get an MBA, and pivot to another role? If I gave finance 5 years and still find it unenjoyable, is that enough to say it's not for me? I'd love to do something I just feel any excitement for. Am I falling into the classic 'grass is always greener' trap? I know, lots of questions and realize I sound pathetic but any advice is really appreciated.
I was in a similar boat a few years ago (PE but whatever, same concept). Burnt out, not enjoying the work, etc. I kept grinding for similar reasons - felt like it was a great opp that I had worked really hard for, but my heart wasn't in it anymore. Then one day I just decided to quit. Didn't actually resign immediately, thought about it really hard for a few months, and then one day just walked into a partner's office and did it.
I intentionally didn't have a job lined up - just wanted a break to reset. Didn't think about work or career at all for about 2 months, did some traveling, read some books, played a lot of video games (this is probably relatively less appealing today given COVID/lockdowns). At some point that got old, so I made a list of jobs that I thought were cool and had a reasonable shot of getting. Called up a buncha buddies in those roles to chat about them before deciding to say fuck it to PE. Wound up in corp dev at a midsized company, which I genuinely like (mostly because I like my coworkers) but the work is certainly more varied too.
One thing you can do now is just start to figure out general areas that are interesting to you. Browse LinkedIn, talk to friends, etc. You don't have to make any commitments, but I certainly would say that 5 years is enough to tell you whether you like something or not. It's also a good time to pivot, as you have some good experience but aren't senior enough to be pigeonholed.