Sorry in advance for the lenght of this post.
Interested to get your perspectives on a career switch I'd like to make. I'm 41 and have been in enterprise software sales (engineering SW) for the past 15+ years. Got a Mechanical Engineering degree from A&M in 08. Majored in engineering because I liked math and didn't think a math degree in itself was useful. I knew I hated product design and don't really like tinkering with things. Don't ask me how an engine works. I'm the least mechanical ME grad you've ever seen.
I joined a technology company in Austin right out of school (NI) and went through their rotational new grad program and went into sales two years later. Another move I thought I'd never make. In 2015 I moved to a simulation software company and have worked for a few companies in this area. Mostly as an individual contributor. My manager's job is about to open, and I will be pursuing it. It's been good, but has never been a real passion for me.
I always thought I'd do the engineering thing for a few years and go get a full-time MBA. My wife is an Aggie and tu law grad, and I assumed she'd do the legal thing while I got my MBA, I'd likely move into consulting for a few years and then we'd start a family. God laughed at this plan and I became a dad shortly before turning 25. By 30 I had three kids and my lawyer wife was a stay at home mom and has been one ever since.
I explored EMBA programs and ended up choosing tu's. It's pretty much the only option in Austin and it's good but of course reeks of elitism. I gradaute May of 2027. My end goal is to be on the acquisition side. I'd love to one day lead corporate development for a large company, but these roles are few and far between. Even very large companies have tiny corp dev departments. PE would be awesome too. I have seen multiple acquisitions and divestitures in companies I have been a part of and want to do similar work to sales, but at a much larger and more critical scale. Due diligence, post-acquisition integration, synergies, etc are what I want to do.
What are your thoughts on some of the next steps I could possibly take? Consulting or IB seem somewhat natural to get the necessary on the job experience for corp dev or PE but my path is very non-standard. I'm not a 29 year old coming out of Wharton or another great full-time program.
Interested to get your perspectives on a career switch I'd like to make. I'm 41 and have been in enterprise software sales (engineering SW) for the past 15+ years. Got a Mechanical Engineering degree from A&M in 08. Majored in engineering because I liked math and didn't think a math degree in itself was useful. I knew I hated product design and don't really like tinkering with things. Don't ask me how an engine works. I'm the least mechanical ME grad you've ever seen.
I joined a technology company in Austin right out of school (NI) and went through their rotational new grad program and went into sales two years later. Another move I thought I'd never make. In 2015 I moved to a simulation software company and have worked for a few companies in this area. Mostly as an individual contributor. My manager's job is about to open, and I will be pursuing it. It's been good, but has never been a real passion for me.
I always thought I'd do the engineering thing for a few years and go get a full-time MBA. My wife is an Aggie and tu law grad, and I assumed she'd do the legal thing while I got my MBA, I'd likely move into consulting for a few years and then we'd start a family. God laughed at this plan and I became a dad shortly before turning 25. By 30 I had three kids and my lawyer wife was a stay at home mom and has been one ever since.
I explored EMBA programs and ended up choosing tu's. It's pretty much the only option in Austin and it's good but of course reeks of elitism. I gradaute May of 2027. My end goal is to be on the acquisition side. I'd love to one day lead corporate development for a large company, but these roles are few and far between. Even very large companies have tiny corp dev departments. PE would be awesome too. I have seen multiple acquisitions and divestitures in companies I have been a part of and want to do similar work to sales, but at a much larger and more critical scale. Due diligence, post-acquisition integration, synergies, etc are what I want to do.
What are your thoughts on some of the next steps I could possibly take? Consulting or IB seem somewhat natural to get the necessary on the job experience for corp dev or PE but my path is very non-standard. I'm not a 29 year old coming out of Wharton or another great full-time program.
