Consulting Firms Prestige

Feb 23, 2020 74 Comments

What do people view as the prestige levels of consulting firms now? Of course MBB is still tier 1, but where do the other firms fall in terms of how they’re regarded within the industry?

Do you think the pay reflects the prestige?

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TOP 74 Comments
  • Airbnb
    wise taco

    Go to company page Airbnb

    wise taco
    If you're asking people in tech, prestige among consulting is like prestige among third world countries.
    Feb 23, 2020 27
    • Oracle
      jumpship

      Go to company page Oracle

      jumpship
      No one said TC is only thing.
      They said, TC reflects impact.

      If someone says they’re building a City from ground up, their TC should reflect their impact.
      Apr 13, 2020
    • Every consultant I know is miserable and unhappy with the work they do. Compare that to tech where people seem to be miserable about their companies and their bosses (like every place) but not at the end of the day the work they do. SWE along with doctors and nurses score some of the highest in terms of “work satisfaction”. Lawyers, consultants and finance types are always at the botttom of the polls. Says it all

      Also I know zero tech ppl wanting to go to consulting but every consultant at MBB wishes they could get into FANG for the cushy lifestyle and higher comp.
      May 16, 2020
  • Apple / Mgmt
    Tim App1e

    Go to company page Apple Mgmt

    Tim App1e
    In the tech world, consulting companies that provide software engineering contractors are the absolute opposite of "prestigious". They're considered lower-skilled and lower-status than any full-time engineer. They sit in their own overcrowded & perk-less buildings, with super-bright badges to denote their lower status. They're typically not invited to any meetings, nor do any real design or architecture, and are relegated to menial grunt-work.

    This was mind-blowing to me when I got into SW engineering. I always thought it was prestigious to be a "consultant". Maybe this is true outside of tech, but in the software industry, consultants are viewed at the same social standing as security guards or cafe workers. It's quite sad, since I'm sure many are pretty smart...
    Feb 24, 2020 5
    • Amazon
      Xbox.msft

      Go to company page Amazon

      PRE
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      AMZN PMT L6
      Xbox.msft
      Yeah and even funnier is those people (mostly on H1 visa too) can come from the same company as the management consultants, but have vastly different pay and training. The management consultants usually are recruited rigorously out of the top b-school; most of them had an impressive career in various fields prior. The most prestigious ones are the so called big three. I don’t think those have any cheapo IT drones for rent practice. Accenture on the other hand has a lot of cheap contractors, but also has management consulting practice. Deloitte as well. (Accenture actually used to be one of the big five accounting firms (Andersen) until the accounting arm lost its license in the Enron scandal.)
      Grouping people from McKinsey with the contractors u see at office is insulting to them :) it’s like comparing someone working in Product to an IT guy at your office that fixes your printer. “Aren’t u guys both engineers working on computer?”
      Also, management consultants don’t work directly with u (an engineer or engineering manager). They usually work directly with the c-suite.
      Mar 10, 2020
    • SAP
      gryftu

      Go to company page SAP

      gryftu
      Haha joke is on the uptight folks who are saying consultants are third class when these consultants get green cards in 2 years on EB1C.
      Mar 15, 2020
  • As a software engineer who moved to consulting bcos they moving to "digital", I regret it and dont care about the prestige. Bunch of A in M level tried to looking smarter who even have no idea how REST working but sound expert when talking 'microservice'
    Feb 24, 2020 2
    • Come back to tech. You will love it. Dm me if you need advice
      Mar 10, 2020
    • Avant
      JWJg26

      Go to company page Avant

      JWJg26
      I am in the same boat as you. But I looked at the clientele but sadly the work is shot even for big name clients only use consultants for mundane work. Would love to go back to tech some time soon.
      Apr 3, 2020
  • Facebook
    😞 stonks

    Go to company page Facebook

    😞 stonks
    Tier 1 - IT Consultants @ FB HelpDesk (probably Google’s equivalents are in same tier)

    Tier 2 - Apple Geniuses

    Tier 3 - MBB

    Tier 4 - The rest
    Mar 11, 2020 0
  • Samsung
    statarb

    Go to company page Samsung

    statarb
    MBB is dying or will die in the next decade. We will have so much insight from ML that one can spin up a strategy, deploy, evaluate, iterate. It’s going to take a while to centralize and tie goal setting with operations, but once that is done, the whole MBB nonsense will be laid to rest. I know some of these firms are investing in ML capability, but economists, operations research experts paired with data scientists will run circles around MBB consultants.
    Mar 9, 2020 4
    • Sure. But what does that have to do with ML replacing consultants? You'd need a huge dataset of "high level summaries" from managers in order to make fair and effective headcount decisions with ML.

      (Looking at high level summaries is also pretty stupid because they don't capture complexities and impediments that no one anticipated, including the managers.)
      Mar 22, 2020
    • EyeMed Vision Care
      skepticz

      EyeMed Vision Care

      skepticz
      You guys don’t understand strategy - please look it up in the dictionary. AI ML are powerful, not sure they apply here how you mean it.
      Feb 25