Those who leave finance

By browsing on this forum, it shows that finance (IB,PE,HF ) is not something that is for everyone ( long hours, sacrificing relationships, etc). So out of curiosity, have any of you guys know anyone who completely left the industry and do you know what they are doing know.

 

Wont describe in detail for anonymity -- but left banking to run stategy / finance at a tech company. No longer use much of the in-the-weeds techicals learned in finance but lots of soft skills etc are transferable to most other work in corp world. Thing I miss the most is the camaraderie

 

Interested in this. Other than the camaraderie, how has the switch been?

 

I'd say I'm in a bit more of a unqiue situation -- father is retiring from a LMM company in tech space and rather than sell to PE a few years back I decided to forgo finance and move in to transition him into retirement. The learning curve was incredibly steep as he comes from an engineering background and finance is all I've ever known. It helps to have him as a crash-course guide I can go to whenever I have technical questions.

By Camaraderie i'm referring to having a gruop of juniors who "came into the boat with you" and have some bonding over even if just effing aroudn late night in the office. You lose a lot of that when you go into corporate in general

 
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Am switching to a medical career as I find finance / business to be very superficial and not meaningful in the way I want. At the junior level, I feel like I am some outsourced research analyst who learns about an industry and puts slides / analyses together for a few days (or in the case of deals, a few months) and then does the same thing but for a different industry / company. At the senior level, I would still feel like I am not an expert in my field and am just getting by through reading research reports and BSing my way through (with the fear of always getting caught and people realizing I know nothing) - also, having to win deals just to put money on the table is pretty much a sales job, which I am not good at at all and does not interest me.

I believe medicine is a lot more rewarding and something I can see myself doing even 20 years from now. Of course, nothing is that rosy but knowing that everyday I am helping people out and doing something benefitting other people is a great feeling compared to just shifting companies around between PE firms or investing in opportunities just to make money.

 

I have researched post bacs and found Columbia to be one of the best as they have great linkages to med schools:

https://gs.columbia.edu/content/linkage-specific-program-requirements

You don’t even have to take the MCAT for some, but caveat is that this program at Columbia is hard as hell and expensive AF.

If you don’t get the required GPA/requirements, you have to apply on your own without the linkages.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

It's a fair question. IBD gives you some very specific but narrow skills. Interesting to see what others have gone off and done afterwards. I know one trader who became COO of a restaurant chain, a former IBD ED who started an ecommerce site, an associate in ER that became a kindergarten COO, several ppl who joined tech companies in ops/strategy roles, a couple who left IBD to start a HF, and a fair few former finance ppl who went on to do boutique IBD or capital introduction / placement agent work.

 

growing up I lived on an orchard. I used to love picking fruit and digging holes. Give me a pickaxe and I can tear up a field for planting like there's no tomorrow. That was my favorite thing. Give me a field to tear up and I'm just thrilled. I LOVE working outdoors, with my hands, doing manual labor. I can stack bricks and build a wall and put in irrigation pipes without rest. I wish manual labor paid better. I think it would be so nice to be able to support a family on that.

 

Joined a tech company in a strategy role and then moved to becoming a product manager. Ended up making more than I would have staying in finance which was certainly not my initial expectation.

 

Hey if you don't mind could you share a little more information on the transition and how you went about it. Were you in IB before you moved to the tech company? Why did you decide to leave finance? How similar/different was the work? Did you have to learn some technical knowledge on your own to be able to transition into the PM role? Thanks!

 

My story is similar to yours. I was in FAS (NYC) recently before I got laid off, and just took a job offer as a product manager in a fintech company in APAC. Haven't started yet. A startup that has ~500 ppl. Before FAS, I did a long-term equity research internship.
I self-studied Python and SQL on an intense pace --- SQL is not hard to learn, while Python is more difficult, it's syntax is not as complicated as say Java. These are good for data analysis as a PM; product management courses from Coursera, and read a couple PM books. The position I am going to also requires some knowledge in blockchain --- read a book, some papers and articles.

Do you have to learn some basic technical knowledge to transition into a PM role? I believe so. You need to understand what a product manager does, the responsibilities and some common/popular PM processes in case you are asked during interviews. SQL/Python/Some other coding languages would be helpful in data analysis or working with the engineers. Soft skills gained in finance would be very transferable.

I decided to leave finance --- given its fintech PM maybe not completely --- after thinking hard about where I want to go next. My plan is to learn mobile deveolpment and start a company, or at least be able to write well-functioning apps in the next two years. I want a role where I can be closer to how businesses operate and what it's like to build products. I've admitted to myself that conducting valuations based on client expectations (the client told me to use a 5% discount rate while the valuation was supposed to be "independent"), fixing powerpoint margins at 12am, waiting for comments that "might come in " at 2am on Saturday morning, or drafting research notes that are supposedly valuable (90% of sell-side equity research is probably worthless) is not exactly what I want. I'm not saying there aren't aspects that I don't find the profession interesting --- I made efforts to break in at the first place. It's just not what I truly want.

 

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