EY Auditor, 2 YOE, CPA, MAcc from top accounting school, Married. I can only stand 3-4 more years of Big 4 busy seasons. I want to be home more with my family but I'd like to get to ~180K TC in Texas dollars. What accounting career path have you found most fulfilling? Controller/CFO, Financial Reporting, Internal Audit, Advisory, FP&A, continue in External Audit (and hope for better WLB), smaller firm? SWE's go away.
Im have been in the bay area in Internal audit or compliance type roles for last 5-6 years. I make around $180k in TC but with 7-8 years experience. I don't think accounting is a very lucrative career, unless of course you make it to VP level (corporate finance or controllership). And progression to that level will need easily 15 years experience
fulfilling? accounting? oxymoron? learn to code - sql will get you somewhere better
I agree with @AuntHilda depends on what you find exciting, and for $180k you can find that within a few years of any of your suggestions from people I’ve talked to. If you want to stay B4 then consider the smaller practices. I am in the Deals practice and there are a number of areas you can choose to go into from Audit.
Controller is the only vertical that you can call Accounting. Also, it’s a personal choice what you prefer. If you prefer standard month-end closings without much surprise, be a controller. If you want some excitement and travel, go for M&A. If you enjoy interacting with functional leads, looking at variances and solving for the same then go for FP&A. If you like rolling up the numbers, butter coating the numbers, talking in a way that would sound cool but doesn’t make sense then go for Financial Reporting.