Investment Bank Degree Apprenticeships
Hi. I am a 17 year old in London studying for my A levels in maths, further maths and physics for this summer. I am predicted all A stars in my A levels and have achieved all A/Astars equivalent at GCSE. I am a very strong student, one of the top in my school, and initially was planning on going to university to study maths. However recently this all changed. After multiple interview rounds, I received an offer to join a very prestige BB IB (I wont say which one but its not hard to figure out) as a software engineering degree apprentice. For those who are unfamiliar with degree apprenticeships, essentially they are programs in which companies employ school leavers to work for them whilst they study for a degree, they pay them a full salary and also pay their tuition fee, and once they graduate they return full time. The particular degree apprenticeship offer I received is at an IB in London, and its four years long, each week I spend three days at the office working and two days in university completing my degree. After the four years I graduate, and get a full time position as a software engineer at the company like any other incoming graduate. I will be living at home with my parents during this program, and am going to be paid £26,000 per annum. After graduating and joining full time, I can expect a comfortable salary of roughly £60,000 from what I hear, as this is a very high end IB. The degree that I would be studying for and the university id be studying at is weaker compared to what/where I could study if I take the traditional university route, as its a low tier London based Russel group university (wont say, but you can guess which one), and I have potential to study at a high tier, semi/target university. However the company alone is so prestige that it doesn't matter, as being guaranteed a job after at this company is a huge win. I think I am a very career driven person for my age, and am really set on this career at this company. I have researched the company, career and apprenticeship very in depth, and am confident in what I am getting myself into. Getting paid a salary at 18, working at a prestige IB, having no tuition fees or debt and being offered a full time position after graduating is all very appealing to me and hence I am taking it.
Id like to ask what are your opinions in what I am getting myself into. Is there anything I am missing out? Am I making the right choice? Im new to all this so please be patient in explaining, thank!
You will realise soon that prestige means 0 in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps you’ll like it, perhaps you won’t. There are always worse opportunities so if you do take it then it’s still a great position to be in.
Interesting questions, I think first of all you should really ask yourself if the position you’ll end up working at the bank (probably some MO/BO - non IB role) is the one you’d be aiming for at the first place.
Would really not care too much about the prestige of your bank at this stage but more about the role.
Concerning the attractive offer with the bank paying your fees etc., be aware that if you would decide to go to a (semi)target you would have the chance of finding a job which could pay you 2x your initial 60k salary, not mentioning the prospects down the road.
TLDR: Would only take the position if you are truly passionate about the future role.
Tbh, I am not too fussy about this front office back office stuff, I know there is a difference but I am more of a tech nerd than a finance bro, so im pretty happy in whichever id be placed in as long as I get to be a true software engineer after which this program promises. I have seen on linkedin graduates from this apprenticeship become full time software engineers at the IB afterwards, and have seen some move to companies like Amazon and Palantir. I honestly am not chasing mega money, and £60k starting is more than enough for me. I know going to a semi/target school could open up as good if not better doors for me, however the risk is that internships and grad roles are insanely competitive. I know I am good at interviews and assesment centers etc otherwise I wouldnt of gotten this offer, however I still am not confident enough to give this up. Plus, I really like the idea of going straight to work, honestly I get bored from school and would probably not enjoy full time uni that much.
Good to hear that you know what you want. Seems like you’re more interested in the software engineering route than in IB.
Be aware that you are in a IB forum, so most of the people here will be slightly biased towards suggesting you to approach a finance orientated path.
Lastly, I think the true question you should ask yourself how you’re job at the bank would compare to other software engineering jobs you could get from a (semi)target - maybe you should ask in the WSO Software equivalent for this !
If you're not to fussed about FO and you are more interested in tech that it is probably a good option. Breaking into FO is difficult form an apprenticeship but if software dev is fine for you its not a bad option.
If you want to work in SWE, then this is fine. But I'd always argue for going to university over doing an investment banking degree apprenticeship.
I wouldn’t call it an investment banking degree apprenticeship. More so a software engineering apprenticeship that so happens to be at a bank… Not that it means anything lmao
Being serious - I’d consider what you want OP, and think about two things:
Personally the answer to those for me was yes. I wanted the uni experience and valued the optionality.
Sorry your right the title may be a bit misleading. To answer your questions, no I dont care about the university experience, actually I hate the thought of going to university and full time and staying in education for another three years. I hate school as it is because it bores me out of my mind, and I really enjoyed my experiences of the work life (e.g. my paid work experience week at a private equity company earlier on in October), even though I'd have to wake up early and get home late, I loved going to the city to work in a big office full of smart people. Second of all, yes I am set on tech. I wouldnt mind a career in tech or finance (so long as it pays decent), so the fact I will be working in tech at an investment bank is very appealing to me because it combines my interests in a career. I am perfectly happy with being a SWE throughout my life, it is my dream career.
Assuming this is JP, it's a great program. You're right, I have friends as SWE in JPM who've seen colleagues go anywhere. The thing about tech is it doesn't matter what firm you work at to lateral, it's more if you can pass the coding tests. A lot of my friend's colleagues come from tiny startups in the north, to Amazon etc.
One thing is to limit your expectations. You talk about prestige, but it means jack sh*t in terms of your happiness. It can be prestigious but if you're doing apprenticeship work (i.e. monitoring systems), it can be extremely dull and not be beneficial to your development goals. Then you realise you're stuck here in the 4 years and after for a set period of time in something you don't want to do. It's a daunting decision for a high school student.
Not sure how difficult the workload seems though, given you are only given 2 days to study, will you be moving at the same pace as other full-time students?
Although, given you are clearly a smart student, do you want to be giving up the potential of going to Oxbridge-type of universities and the experience of university as a whole? Your friends will come back every break and talk about their experience, would you feel left out here?
Also, I think Goldman started doing degree apprenticeships for trading/quant if that's something you're also interested in?
I should probably explain my situation a bit more. I was originally actually planning on going to a target school for Computer Science. I applied for Cambridge, Imperial, UCL, Warwick and Exeter for compsci. I had perfect A level predictions, a strong personal statement on number theory and its relevance in cryptographic systems, and a good set of GCSE grades. I even got a strong TMUA score (Cambridge compsci entrance exam) which helped me onto the interview round. Unfortunately, I got rejected by all my universities except Exeter. This is simply because compsci at top unis like the ones I applied for have become disproportionately competitive due to the hype surrounding technology, leading to it becoming oversaturated. Its a real shame because I am very confident that if I had applied for something like maths at these same universities, I would have gotten a lot more better offers, because I have classmates of similar and in some cases lower ability who did. I dont want to sound bitter but I know that I would have done much better if I had applied for an alternative course, but compsci has become too competitive now. My plan was to take a gap year and reapply to maths at similar level target schools. I am even taking an additional exam, the STEP II, to help support my academic profile in case I wanted to take a gap year and reapply to maths. However this all changed when I recieved the offer for the Degree Apprenticeship. I wont bother hiding the company because it seems you all can figure it out easily, its Goldman Sachs. I only care about prestige because of exit opportunities. After graduating and becoming a full time SWE at the firm, if I ever wanted to move companies, having GS on my CV would benefit me. Regarding the work Id be doing, I have researched very in depth and from what I understand during the four years, I will be working on projects in my teams like any other SWE, however my role will be slightly less demanding and I will be treated as a trainee. After the four years and I graduate and return to the company full time, I will be like any other SWE. The progression in this path is perfectly fine, I was even interviewed by an associate SWE at the company who started as an apprentice like I will, five years ago when he was 18. As for the university side, the degree is pretty low tier, its a degree in software engineering, and is more practical than academic. We would be taught all the programming involved, and be taught things like big data, AI & ML, networking etc. Its all to support a career as a SWE, and not much more. Regarding the university experience, I honestly wont miss it at all, if you scroll up I replied to someone elses comment and explained my standpoint on the university experience. Is there anything else you think I should be aware of?
Look you clearly have your head screwed on at such a young age so I think you've thought about this enough and should go with your gut.
Prestige of exit opportunities from Goldman back office is not as 'glamorous' as you think. FAANG companies view bank developers as 'inferior', which is bullsh*t imo but it's the way they view it. The exit opps the 'Goldman' brand won't help as much as you think. They only care about you passing the coding tests in the interview, doesn't matter where you are from. So you should probably get this prestige thing out of your head. If you state you care about prestige as much as you say, you'll get a reality check when a front office trader gets mad at your team for a system failure and berates your team, it doesn't matter if Goldman is on your CV. Hence, if you look on linkedin, most bank developers just hop between the banks for better pay. E.g. Goldman -> JPM.
Last thing to consider is whether you want to be a SWE or not. Since your exit opps will be SWE/tech related anyway, nothing to do with Finance. I do get concerned when I see high schoolers being dead set on a career when they probably have no what experience of day-to-day life is like. The thing that university gives you, especially in the UK, is the ability to do internships/pivot your career choice.
Also get some clarification if the salary is constant, and what level you would be upon graduation (i.e. would you be considered an analyst/graduate, or an associate (+=2 years of experience post graduation). Graduates at Goldman I believe are on 60k+.
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100% go for it, but I'd recommend living with flatmates instead of staying with parents
Just know that this isn't IB, SWE is not a front office, revenue generating role at banks.
Good luck!
My parents arent in the best financial situation so I want to stay home and help pay bills, otherwise they wont be able to afford living in London, plus it works out cheaper for me. And yes I did do a little digging into this FO/BO thing, and im completely fine with being BO as a SWE, thanks!
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