Congrats! Yes, going from the middle office to a front office role outside of a large bank can also work.

Hey Dave, I’m trying to understand more about corporate coverage as I have an offer from an apprenticeship to work in corporate coverage. It seems like you’re aiming to pursue a career in corporate coverage and I would deeply appreciate if you could tell me more about if possible or direct me to a place where I could learn more about it. Thank you in advance and enjoy the upcoming weekend!

I’m not 100% certain of that one, but I think credit risk to LevFin would be difficult. Corporate coverage is probably a better bet for moving into LevFin because it’s perceived to be more client-facing with more relevant skills.

Thank you for this very informative post. I currently work as a credit analyst covering hedge funds, private equity and asset managers at an investment bank and I really want to make a career in leveraged finance. I am just about to move to corporate coverage because that’s definitely a more relevant coverage area for LevFin but I wanted to see your take on moving to LevFin directly from credit risk. I know credit risk is an important aspect in LevFin but I was wondering about my chances of actually securing a position in LevFin from a middle office role. Do you think it is a likely scenario or is there any relevant role where credit risk is a useful experience and I would have better chances to get into LevFin from ?

Appreciate your time very much in advance.

Good question. I would say ALM is more of a middle-office role because it exists mostly to support S&T functions. I don’t think it’s back office if you consider the salaries, responsibilities, and typical career path. But I also don’t think ALM really counts as front office because most of the work is internal to the bank and doesn’t relate to external clients. Sales and S&T are different because you do work with external clients.

Yes. The market for finance jobs in India is not great because there aren’t that many roles compared to the population / overall economy. If you have the option, it is almost always better to do a top Master’s degree or MBA in another region so you can work in a market with more jobs.

A role doing what? Some jobs at large banks do involve or require statistics (such as anything quant-related), but it’s more important in some areas and less important in others. They will not care much about statistics if you want to advise companies on large deals in M&A or capital markets, for example.