Finance Careers Explained: IB, PE, and FinTech Compared
Three finance paths that look alike from outside and feel nothing alike inside: the hours, the work, the entry routes and where each one leads.
By Sofia Bauer · Sep 29, 2026 · 13 min read
Investment banking, private equity and fintech all hire people who can read a set of accounts and build a model, but they buy different things with that skill. Investment banking sells advice and access to capital on a deal clock. Private equity buys companies and owns the outcome for years. Fintech builds and sells a financial product, so finance work sits next to engineering and growth teams. The entry route into all three usually runs through a bachelor's degree, at least one internship, and a first job that involves a lot of spreadsheet work.
This guide sets out what the day looks like in each, how to get in, what drives pay, and where the ladder goes — with the honest downsides included.
What a finance professional in IB, PE, or FinTech does
All three roles turn financial data into a decision. What differs is who the decision belongs to.
A typical day includes some mix of:
- Building and correcting financial models in Excel — three-statement forecasts, discounted cash flow, leveraged buyout or unit-economics models — and re-running them every time an assumption changes.
- Reading financial statements and pulling the numbers that matter into a comparable format. BLS lists evaluating current and historical financial data, studying economic and business trends and examining a company's financial statements among the core tasks of financial analysts.
- Writing decks and memos: a pitch book in banking, an investment committee paper in private equity, a board or budget pack in fintech. BLS also lists preparing written reports and presentations.
- Sitting on calls with company management, lawyers, accountants and lenders to fill gaps in the data. BLS notes financial analysts meet with company officials as part of the job.
- Running or feeding a process — a diligence checklist, a data room, a month-end close, a funding round.
- Checking someone else's work. Juniors mark up, seniors mark down; a broken formula that reaches a client is the thing everyone is trying to prevent.
- Watching markets and comparable deals so your assumptions are defensible.
Where you work: investment banks, boutique advisory firms, private equity and growth equity funds, and finance, strategy or risk teams inside fintech companies. BLS notes that investment banks primarily employ securities and commodities traders, though some work at commercial banks, hedge funds and private equity groups. Most of this work happens in an office setting (BLS), concentrated in a handful of financial centres per country.
Schedule, honestly: BLS says financial analysts mostly work full time and some work more than 40 hours a week, and that securities, commodities and financial services sales agents may work evenings and weekends to accommodate clients or meet deadlines. In practice, deal-side banking is the extreme end — long, unpredictable nights during live transactions, weekends lost to a turn of comments, and little control over your own calendar. Private equity is usually calmer between deals and brutal during one. Fintech finance roles are closer to standard business hours, with spikes at close, audit and fundraising. If unpredictability is what you cannot live with, that is the single most useful thing to know before you start.
How to become one
- Finish a relevant bachelor's degree (3-4 years, cost varies enormously by country and institution). BLS says financial analysts typically need a bachelor's in finance or a related field such as business, and that securities sales roles typically need a bachelor's for entry level, commonly in business with coursework in finance, accounting and economics. Take the accounting module even if it looks dull — it is the language everything else is written in.
- Get fluent in Excel before you apply (4-12 weeks of deliberate practice, from free to a few hundred in your currency for a structured course). Build one three-statement model from a real company's published annual report, end to end, with no circular-reference errors. That artefact is worth more in an interview than a list of course titles.
- Do at least one internship (8-12 weeks, usually paid). BLS notes internships often provide useful experience for securities and financial services roles. Apply 9-12 months ahead for bank summer programmes; fintech and smaller funds hire on much shorter notice, sometimes within weeks.
- Learn one technical tool beyond Excel (1-3 months). SQL if you are aiming at fintech, Python with pandas if you want to be useful in analytics or risk, PowerPoint properly if you are aiming at advisory. Ship something small — a script that pulls and charts a company's reported quarterly revenue — and put it on GitHub.
- Start the CFA Program if you are targeting investment or research roles (each level typically takes several months of study; check the CFA Institute website for current registration and exam fees, which vary by when you register). It is not required for banking, and it does not substitute for deal experience in private equity, but it signals seriousness if your degree was not in finance.
- Expect licensing to happen after you are hired, not before. BLS names FINRA as the main licensing organisation for the US securities industry and notes that because most licenses require employer sponsorship, companies do not expect candidates to hold them before starting. The Series 7 (General Securities Representative Qualification Examination) has 125 multiple-choice items, runs 3 hours 45 minutes, requires a passing score of 72, has the SIE exam as a corequisite and costs $395 (FINRA). Licensing bodies and rules differ outside the US — check your national regulator.
- Talk to three people doing the job you want (2-6 weeks of outreach). Ask an analyst two years ahead of you what their last month actually looked like, not what the role description says. Use alumni lists and professional networks; keep it to 15 minutes and one specific question.
- Apply in the right window with a one-page CV built around outputs (1-6 months to an offer). Lead with the model you built, the internship deliverable, the club fund you helped run. Prepare for technicals: walk me through a DCF, how the three statements link, what happens to free cash flow if depreciation rises.
Skills you'll need
BLS lists analytical skills, communication skills, computer skills, decision-making skills and being detail oriented as important qualities for financial analysts. Here is what that means in tools and evidence.
Hard skills
| Skill | What it looks like in practice |
|---|---|
| Excel modelling | Three-statement models, DCF and LBO structures, sensitivity tables, keyboard-driven work without a mouse |
| Accounting literacy | Reading a 10-K, annual report or management accounts and spotting where revenue recognition, leases or working capital distort the picture |
| Data tools | SQL for pulling transaction and user data, Python with pandas for cleaning it, and a BI tool such as Tableau or Power BI for reporting |
| Market and company research | Using a terminal or database such as Bloomberg or S&P Capital IQ where your employer provides one, and public filings where they do not |
| Presentation craft | PowerPoint decks and one-page memos where the headline states the conclusion, not the topic |
Soft skills, and how to show them
- Precision under time pressure. Show it by describing a specific error you caught before it went out, and the check you built afterwards so it could not happen again.
- Written clarity. Show it by sending a short, structured follow-up email after an interview or informational chat — one paragraph, one ask.
- Working with people who are stressed. Deal work involves lawyers, founders and clients on bad days. Show it with an example of holding a process together when someone senior changed their mind late.
- Judgement about what matters. Show it by explaining, in an interview, which two assumptions your model was actually sensitive to and why you stopped refining the rest.
- Stamina and self-management. Show it with any sustained commitment — a part-time job through study, a sport, a long project — not with a claim that you like hard work.
Pay and outlook
Pay in all three paths is built the same way: a base salary plus something variable. In investment banking the variable part is an annual bonus tied to the fee pool your group generated and your ranking within it, and it can swing widely year to year. In private equity it is a bonus plus, at more senior levels, carried interest — a share of investment profits that pays out years later and only if the fund performs. In fintech it is usually a smaller cash bonus plus equity, which is worth nothing until there is a liquidity event and may be worth nothing after one. Two people with the same job title and the same base can end a year very far apart.
The other drivers are firm size and profitability, the city you work in, whether you sit in a revenue-generating seat or a support function, and the deal cycle. Hiring in advisory and buyout work is cyclical: when transaction volumes fall, junior classes shrink, bonuses compress and lateral moves get harder. Fintech hiring tracks funding conditions in a similar way. This is the honest downside of the pay upside — the variable part goes down as well as up, and headcount can follow it.
For published figures, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook is the reference point. BLS reports a median annual wage of $102,740 for financial and investment analysts and $117,330 for financial risk specialists in May 2025, and $78,660 for securities, commodities and financial services sales agents in the same month. On demand, BLS projects employment of financial analysts to grow 7 percent from 2025 to 2035 with about 29,500 openings a year on average, and employment of securities, commodities and financial services sales agents to grow 1 percent over the same period with about 35,100 openings a year, mostly from replacement needs.
Read those categories carefully. BLS classifications do not map neatly onto "investment banking analyst" or "fintech FP&A manager", and medians cover a whole occupation across every employer and region. Outside the US, check your national statistics agency or labour ministry. For what a specific firm pays right now, the practical sources are recruiters who place into that sector, posted ranges where local law requires them, and people one or two years ahead of you.
Career path
The three ladders run in parallel, and people move sideways between them — most often out of banking into private equity or fintech, rarely back.
Investment banking
- Analyst — 2-3 years. Modelling, deck production, data rooms.
- Associate — 3-4 years. Owns the model and the process, manages analysts. Entered either by promotion or after an MBA; BLS notes an MBA may be helpful for advancement in securities and financial services roles.
- Vice President — 3-4 years. Runs execution, manages clients day to day.
- Director or Executive Director — 2-4 years. Starts carrying origination expectations.
- Managing Director — open-ended. Paid on the revenue you bring in.
Private equity
- Analyst or Associate — 2-3 years. Diligence, models, portfolio reporting. Most associates arrive after two or three years in banking.
- Senior Associate — 2-3 years. Leads workstreams, drafts investment committee papers.
- Vice President — 3-4 years. Runs deals, sits on portfolio company work.
- Principal — 3-5 years. Sources and leads investments.
- Partner — open-ended. Carry becomes the main component of pay.
FinTech finance and strategy
- Financial or business analyst — 2-3 years. Reporting, unit economics, forecasting.
- Senior analyst or finance manager — 2-4 years. Owns a budget, a product line or a risk model.
- Head of FP&A, strategic finance or risk — 3-5 years. Builds the team and the fundraising model.
- VP Finance, then CFO — open-ended, and heavily dependent on the company surviving and growing.
Two things to expect. First, attrition is designed in at the junior end of banking and buyout funds — pyramids narrow fast, and leaving after two or three years is the normal outcome, not a failure. Second, the skills transfer well: BLS notes that as financial analysts gain experience they may advance to portfolio or fund manager roles, and that a master's in finance or business administration may improve the chances of advancing to those positions. Corporate development, treasury, credit, equity research and founding something are all reachable from any of the three seats.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a specific degree?
You usually need a bachelor's degree, but not necessarily in finance. BLS says financial analysts typically need a bachelor's in finance or a related field such as business and that some employers prefer a master's, and that securities and financial services sales agents typically need a bachelor's for entry level, commonly business with coursework in finance, accounting and economics. Engineering, maths, economics and even humanities graduates get hired, particularly in fintech, if they can demonstrate modelling and accounting ability. What blocks people is not the subject on the certificate; it is having no internship, no model to show and no one inside the industry who knows them.
Can any of this be done remotely?
Partly, and it varies by employer, country and seniority. BLS describes financial analysts and securities sales agents as typically working in an office setting. Deal-side banking and private equity are the least remote-friendly — client meetings, confidential data handling, and apprenticeship-style learning at the junior level all pull people into the office, and many firms run full-time or near-full-time in-office policies. Fintech finance, risk and analytics roles are the most likely to be hybrid or remote, but equity-heavy startups often want the core team together. Ask directly at offer stage and get the answer in writing.
How long does it take to get a first role?
If you are a student, plan on the length of your degree plus a summer internship, with full-time offers often made a year before you start. If you are switching from another field, budget 6-18 months: roughly 2-3 months to get genuinely fluent in Excel and accounting, a few months of networking and applications, and a hiring cycle that may not line up with your timeline. Switchers land faster into fintech finance, risk and analytics than into banking analyst classes, which recruit mostly from campus.
Do I need a licence or the CFA before applying?
Generally not before you start. BLS names FINRA as the main licensing organisation for the US securities industry and notes that because most licenses require employer sponsorship, firms do not expect candidates to hold them beforehand. Your employer will put you through the required exams — the Series 7, for example, has 125 multiple-choice items, lasts 3 hours 45 minutes, requires a passing score of 72, has the SIE as a corequisite and costs $395 (FINRA). Rules differ outside the US, so check your national regulator. The CFA Program is optional and most useful for research, asset management and investment roles rather than deal execution.
Which of the three should I pick?
Match the path to the thing you can tolerate. Choose investment banking if you want the steepest technical learning curve and can accept losing control of your calendar for two or three years. Choose private equity if you want to own an outcome over years rather than weeks, and accept that most entrants arrive via banking or consulting first. Choose fintech if you want a broader commercial remit, earlier ownership, more predictable hours and equity instead of a large cash bonus — with the company risk that comes with it.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Financial Analysts : Occupational Outlook Handbook
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Securities, Commodities, and Financial Services Sales Agents : Occupational Outlook Handbook
- FINRA — Series 7 – General Securities Representative Exam
