#tech #consulting #engineering #Deloitte #EY #PWC #KPMG Hi Everyone, The past year has been a bit crazy. The pandemic hit as I was a software developer at an automotive OEM. I was transitioning to consulting with BIG4 during that time and was demoted from consultant to analyst before joining. In my view, this was meant to be temporary to weather the storm during the pandemic. “Maybe it’s just temporary” I thought. Since joining as an Analyst, I’ve made significant strides for multiple partners in this practice. Significant impacts: 1. I’ve saved a client from moving to our competitor by improving our design and implementing it for them in less than a month. 2. I’ve automated a client’s asset deployment and redesigned a script deployed on the application layer that looked like pure trash. If it was not for me and the tech lead, the project was going to fail. This project kept us up for 20 hours per day and we finished on time in a month and a half. 3. I’m currently leading a dev team. (Can’t give the details here). Note: every one of these engagements were intended for SENIOR consultants and I performed well above my expectations. The end of year reviews came out, and I scored high. I requested promotion from my manager (my coach). The promotion ended up NOT going through. Odd. All of the consultants got promoted to senior consultants, so doesn’t this make room for my promotion from Analyst to Consultant? Apparently, their reasoning is that I haven’t been here long enough. Then, a friend of mine tells me she got promoted from A -> C and she started with me. She hasn’t done half of what I’ve done!!! I had a meeting with the partner. I made my case and said I’m not looking to be extreme, just looking to be fair. I mentioned everything above and asked “Who will fill these consultant positions?”. They will fill them externally. Prepared, I had the job description open and shared my screen. I was clearly qualified for every single role requirement. He replied by essentially saying I need to be more patient. Out of a bit of anger, I boldly yet calmly replied, “If I had stayed as a software dev at XX OEM instead of joining, would I have qualified for consultant? I signed as a consultant and was demoted to analyst, please keep that in mind.” His answer, “probably, but we just aren’t ready to promote you right now”. I left the call disappointed. It seems like this firm doesn’t appreciate my tech work, and am being discriminated by age. Raises and bonuses were terrible this year. They expected a 30% decline in revenue from the pandemic. Unexpectedly, results came back- 30% INCREASE. Of course, I applied to many places. I have an offer right now for a few thousand dollars over my current salary in embedded software engineering. More pay, less hours that would bring me near my gf of 4 years. (Though moving would cause my savings to decline by 15K for many reasons). I have a couple of more interviews this week. Do you think it’s fair for me to apply elsewhere even though I have only been here for a year? I will definitely be promoted by next June. I have an interview with Space X, Ford, and one more company that I can’t say. Please feel free to comment with any advice. I’m young and don’t know the implications of moving to a new company. What will my career trajectory look like?
Find a place where you are valued for who you are now. You deserve it!
Partners are crazy in Deloitte.. They put all profits in their pocket in FY20 fooling employees that they made huge loss. Although they were still in profits they gave 0% salary raise, freezed hiring and started taking 1.5x work from people..this triggered ppl to leave the company and after many ppl left the company they gave 30-35 % raise in FY21 to retain ppl. I would say leave as early as possible.. Consulting sucks big specially if you are a technical guy.. no stock options.. no WLB.. low TCs compared to product companies.. I was in Deloitte for 8 years and i think i wasted a lot of my time there in unrealistic deadlines, endless and useless meetings.. management doesnt know ABC of software engineering..
Thank you for letting me know this, as you were at Deloitte first hand. I just want to understand some of my exit opportunities from someone more experienced. I’m the only one in my family to have ever gotten a degree, so I don’t know what the implications are if I hop to engineering vs staying at Deloitte vs going to another consulting firm. From your understanding, what would I be missing out on in terms of salary and work/life balance/future opportunities if I left for a “normal” engineering job? My goal is to be financially free, so I would want to make between $160K to $400K TC in a LOCL area
It depends on what you want and what you like. Consulting is good if you want to be in sales role but its not for engineers. If you are more of an engineer.. you can start with some good prod IT company and then gradually switch to any of FANG.