Why I Left My Job in Professional Services

As a trained lawyer and former investment banker, one of the most common questions I get is why I left law and banking to pursue a career in the tech world. The usual answer I give is slightly facetious: “When I was studying law, being a lawyer was the most hated profession in the world. Then 2008 happened, and not being the kind of guy who likes to be second at anything, I switched to banking. My move into tech was merely pre-emptive.” The real motivations are, of course, much more complex than that. 

The reason I guess this gets asked a lot is because it is fairly uncommon to choose a profession that requires a lot of up-front time and energy for relatively little pay (certainly on an hourly basis), only to abandon it when finally approaching the pay-off phase. Both law and banking fit this description. Indeed, it is probably for this reason that while many fantasise about leaving these kinds of industries, few actually seriously follow through with it.

And even if you were to leave, what would you do? Such was the state of my captivity that there were moments, particularly during my time in banking, where I couldn’t even comprehend that there were people outside of banking who did anything else. And what else could you possibly do if your skillset is so narrowly defined anyway? To compound matters, work hours dictated that my friend circle organically dwindled down to fellow finance practitioners, further exacerbating the sense of career isolation.

And yet despite these feelings, these were still the companies most sought after by my generation (and to a lesser extent today, still are). Why were these institutions, as Peter Thiel would describe of his first experience joining a top law firm right out of university, the kinds of places that “everyone on the outside wanted to be in, while everyone on the inside wanted to be out”? 

The first realisation hit me after a series of social gatherings during one bonus season, where in between exchanges of war stories about unreasonable bosses and meaningless tasks, I must have heard 4 or 5 variations of the line “my MD better not f*** me on my bonus this year”. I then realised why our industry paid above market rates for people our age: not because there was anything special about the work we did, but rather because if we weren’t, nobody would do the job. We were in effect being compensated for our misery.  As time wore on, you simply accepted this subconsciously, blindly living a life of financial security while faithfully subscribing to the infallible dogma that your compensation yield curve will appreciate exponentially over your career - you just needed to “stick it out”. Over time this becomes more like a heroin addiction that pacifies you in the short term, but surreptitiously atrophies your mental health in the long term. 

The second compounding factor, I think, was much deeper and pathological than that. HR departments in high intensity sectors do a great job of advertising the exclusivity of the clubs they put on offer: whether it is “bulge bracket” banks, “magic circle” law firms, or “Big 3” consulting, you are regularly reminded how small the success rate of the applications pool is, and how special you are if you make it (top educational institutions utilise the same “psyops” techniques). This captures the imagination of smart, but insecure, graduates looking to extend the social validation that their education affords them into adulthood. More appealingly still, the highly structured career progression policies shield graduates from the real world by offering the opportunity to continue inhabiting the almost gamified system of “levelling up” every year. You go from Year 1, Year 2, Year 3 of your degree straight into a two-year “grad programme” (with four 6-month rotations), followed by three years as an analyst, three years as an associate, three years as a VP, and so on. It’s all very safe and comforting, and cocoons you from the controlled chaos that is real life.

As time wore on the realisation of these factors led me to feel like I had been hoodwinked. Once the validation offered by the “name on the door” wore thin and the attendant resume augmentation became less meaningful, my job dissatisfaction was laid bare and became almost ubiquitous in my friend circle. I needed to get out of the industry, and did shortly after (more on this another time).

As we move to a new era in working culture, one can’t help but wonder whether these roles are becoming culturally anachronistic, and perhaps even redundant. Why would you need to slave away on the preparation of pitch decks, financial models or legal analysis when even today’s basic AI tools can pick up these tasks usually much faster and more comprehensively than an untrained graduate can? As applications for these roles dwindle even as starting salaries appreciate, is it not becoming increasingly clear that the next generation of ambitious youth require more than a title and salary to feel fulfilled? Can’t they, and shouldn’t they, have their creative energy harnessed towards solving more pressing problems in the world?

As things stand, having certain companies and academic institutions on your resume still serves as a signalling tool to future employers (or investors) that you have what it takes to be “successful”, which is why many graduates these days still commit to an entry-level stint of 2-3 years post-grad experience in a top tier outfit before inevitably transitioning into pursuits they’re actually passionate about. However, as traditional career paths increasingly become the exception rather than the rule, how realistic is it for individuals to continue to be penalised for not subjecting themselves to this inauthentic career choreography? 

Happily, banks, law firms and management consultancies are slowly coming round to the idea that talent acquisition and retention is a fundamentally different game today, and are taking active steps to address key concerns of Generation Z recruits: mental health, work-life balance and general well-being. However, with major cultural shifts in our understanding of the place of work in our lives, coupled with technological headwinds increasingly making these jobs largely redundant, it is not inconceivable to imagine that the days of 100-hour sleep-deprived work weeks, slave-driving psychopathic bosses, and Patrick Bateman-esque corporate status-seeking, will probably soon be largely behind us.