Ask HN: Which tech roles would be good for an ex-management consultant? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Which tech roles would be good for an ex-management consultant?

4 pointsryeguy_246 comments

Looking for career advice. I'm a Partner at a management consulting company with a computer science/math background. My current area of focus finance but I'm a serious techie outside of work (know a lot about the entire stack) and want to transition into tech full time.

I can code, I can design, I can talk, I can sell, I can lead.

Which type of roles/jobs in tech would be a good fit for me? Also, anybody hiring?

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> I can code, I can design, I can talk, I can sell, I can lead.

Sorry but no, you can’t do all these things. As a professional developer, I know I can do some design but nowhere close to a professional designer. And I can’t sell like a professional salesman. But I do know that designers are generally not good programmers.

Tech needs a lot of management consulting. So what don’t you do that in tech?

There are a few ways I think about this. The first is to follow the FB framework of focusing on your strengths and interests. The next is to overlap that with what you've been doing at your job most recently. If you're a partner you've likely had to shift your focus to selling deals since becoming a partner. Before then hopefully you had time managing teams of junior consultants. Because of that, I think your most obviously slots at a tech startup would be in business development or operations. Don't get BD confused with Sales as sales is a much more technical role that I don't believe you jump into late into a career at a senior level.

Good luck. As a former consultant that made the jump to tech early in my career, I can tell you it's a leap worth making!

I’d love to chat more if you ever have time. Would like to hear more about your transition.

hey sorry for the late response - feel free to email me at jason[at]trytape.com . Happy to chat!

Product manager / CPO etc. It would be a shame to let your analytical skills go to waste* and a real understanding of software engineering is is incredibly helpful to both you & the engineering teams you work with.

Another one that could be very interesting is Financial Operations in a Fintech company. Fintech companies led by finance-types typically have woeful software. Theres a great opportunity to really automate finance operations and give fintechs of this type a knee up on the competition.

* Plus, it can get very frustrating if you are forced to build things that you know are stupid business/product wise, which unfortunately tends to be the case sometimes.

Would be a huge mistake to even consider it. You’ll simply never have the same earnings or impact potential. Also, you’re probably vastly overestimating your skill set.

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