Hi! I’m evaluating an offer between BAAM’s Hedge Fund Solutions team as an investment associate and a high growth tech company in SF. BX offer details: base: $140k equity: $75k vesting over 4 years annual bonus: ~$70k tech company offer: base: $120k equity: $60k vesting in 4 years I’m aware of BX’s reputation in PE/Real Estate investments but how does this particular division compare? Would I pigeonhole myself in terms of exit opps since this is primarily a fund of fund? Looking at this as a pre MBA gig and prioritzing challenging/intellectually satisfying work for now. Post school, would like to end up in a growth equity type of role. Should I not pass the BX offer up given its prestige?
BX offer for first year is arouns 210k? For associate?
1st year associates in AM usually have 3+ years of experience as opposed to IB where it’s 2+. It’s a pretty standard offer at BX
What does an investment associate do? Also mba in what field would you do to become an investment associate. It sounds interesting.
Really depends on what sub-sectors/what industry you work in If you’re an Investment Associate at a Hedge Fund vs at a Growth equity firm, your roles are pretty different but at the highest level, it’s a mixture of due diligence on companies/industries/markets, financial modeling, portfolio optimization MBA finance is the most common route, but internships/previous work ex are probably more vital
This isn’t a hedge fund manager. It’s a fund of funds. Totally different business model.
Is it possible for me to land these jobs working as an SDE at Amazon?
I had the same question 🤣
Maybe not this kind of role but you could def land SWE or even better, Quant Dev roles at hedge funds and trading firms. However, unless you're working a mostly systematic and quantitative fund like two Sigma or Citadel or virtu it's probably not worth the move
Having worked in a hedge fund firm, for God's sake go with the tech company! At the hedge fund you will be working with & for bat sh*t CRAZY people. No kidding, I KNOW. Been there, done that. Never going back again. If you value your sanity.....
Curious, details? Crazy how? No wlb? Assholes?
Couldn't hack it in high fin-ance? It's a crazy world and worth every penny.
TC and YOE?
I would certainly take the Black stone offer as an investment associate. Stick with them for few years and learn the algo that are used for trading, get a hang of how institutions play the game and you can do your own investing business by staying on institutions side in the market
Good luck with that. The algo keeps changing. Not even years, i am talking about months. There is no way you can mimic what the institution is doing coz you don’t see the whole picture anyway
Well this particular team either invests in hedge funds or co-invests in hedge fund startups with their own capital so you won’t really be exposed to the algorithmic trades used to benefit off of market movements. The Quant aspect is mainly to better understand industries, specific fund managers etc
Wow...Annual bonus =50% of base
Take the BX job for sure. Do your time making good money and the world is your oyster afterwords
Are you joking? The difference in money is not that much. Don’t sell yourself for much a small amount of dough. Go for whatever the best opportunity is always. Sometimes finance has to pay more just to attract more talent because people don’t want these positions anymore.
Well the difference in total comp each year is ~$70K so not a small amount but I agree that I should be prioritizing type of work
Lyft has leniency and grow fast fail fast tendency, while at BX you might not always have that. Depending on what u want to pursue ur MBA in, both the opps can help u out. Besides$$, also think of WLB, work culture and personal growth (outside of work). SF culture is completely opp to what u will see at BX. I agree with Autodesk's response that its not really worth switching from tech first product company. The best place imo for mix of tech and growth equity would b joining a VC firm in Bay area. U being in SF already would def help u with that as there are multiple VC firms at various stages that u can learn and grow at
Being in Bay area opens so many doors for u to even do some side hustle if u are really motivated and want to do personal dev
Thank you! If you’re currently at BX, can I send you a DM?
I would definitely go with BX offer. I spoke with an ED within JP while trying to leverage a potential career path and he said always go for established firms because tech can go either way.
Not every part of Blackstone is gold. BAAM is not where smart people go.