Accounting career advice

[calbro5]

30 (m) married with 2 kids in modest $2.3k month (HCOL) apartment. 15% savings rate on $85k salary.

I'm (cpa) 5 years into a big 4 audit career in a HCOL area and was recently promoted from senior to manager ($94k salary). The long hours, unrealistic expectations, and firm politics are wearing on me, but I love the 5 weeks of vacation time accrual annually and various holidays off.

If I stay I could be looking at earning $160k+ after another 3 years and the upside is $1 million + if I were to stick it out for 7 more year and were to make partner. I don't think I have the right personality or leadership style for that though.

Thoughts/advice on career path? I'm coping through vigerous cardio (hence I'm rail thin) and 2 anti depressants (morning and night). I think a more stable gig would be better for my stress levels? Less time off, but no 70+ hour weeks.

I'm aiming towards retirement at age 62 if I can find a role or series of roles which are low/lower stress. I want more space (a back yard would be nice) for my kids and Im open to moving to another area. My oldest (4) is autistic so I'm not sure to what extent we'll need to continue getting her care/services and to help her out going forward.

[skuzuker28]

Either the Big 4 life is for you or it isn't.  You need to decide for sure what you are wanting, but it sounds like Big 4 Partner is not necessarily a life goal for you.

Look for positions at smaller firms is the obvious answer, don't know where you are located so hard to give suggestions.  Being in Audit limits your options somewhat, as the smaller players in that market are being pushed out, but there are plenty of non-Big 4 auditing firms.  You can also check in with various contract CFO firms, they seem to mostly have an auditing background in my experience.

If you're willing to make the jump to Tax that opens up your options a bit, but that's definitely a different world.  A smaller firm won't pay as much, but much less stress.

[martyconlonontherun]

I heard from 2 different people in public account (no connection) that the average life expectancy of a big 4 partner is 64. Right after I heard that, I know of 2 guys who died on the golf course at that age. How sure are you that you will hit those promotions? I know partner candidates at my former firm are getting screwed by the numbers games, and that trickles down to senior manager. Partner track is probably 5 years longer than it was 8 years ago when your partner says I made partner in X years. No way people are making partner in 12 years at my old firm unless they are a one in a million person who brings in a lot of business.

I was never partner track and make $95k as an internal audit supervisor at a smaller public company in Milwaukee. I was internally promoted so probably a little low and seniors make that much now. Manager is probably making $125k. I work probably 50 hours a week but normally travel 25% of time. I know big 4 have the carrot but I think you are really underpaid in high-cost of living area. You probably are at the point where if you get any more experience, you will have trouble transitioning.

I would put feelers out there with recruiters and set the asking price high. If someone is willing to pay you $130k this year, you might as well take an interview. Why take a 40% pay cut the next four years if you aren't into the partner side of the business?

[mozar]

I'm also surprised by your salary. When I worked as an auditor I was making 94k with no cpa. Are you open to government? A lot of governmental and quasi governmental organizations have small internal audit departments. I used to work for NASA's internal audit department. Most boring job I ever had, lol.

Do you have a linked in profile? Recruiters were constantly contacting me about jobs.

Also Big 4 companies have their own audit consulting practices. Same pay, better hours. All I did was go on the website of the firm, searched jobs, and filtered for consulting and applied.

[Sibley]

You are likely woefully underpaid. I'm an internal audit senior, not in management, making $10k more than you in Chicago. Just so you know.

Edit: reread, realized I math'ed with the wrong numbers. I'm making just a bit more than you, but the point still stands. You're underpaid for a manager role, at least in my field.

[chasesfish]

 I used to work with a lot of accountants (and lawyers, who's partnership structures are very similar).

What do you want to do?  That's the big question to nail down.

Think about three bucks of skills:

What *can* you do?
What are you *really good* at?
What do you enjoy doing?

What type of work gets the most bucket #2 and #3 activities while minimizing the stuff that only goes in #1 for you.

Do you enjoy sales/business development?  That's a requirement if you go the partner route.  It's also where the most money is in your world.  Otherwise you're just selling your skill set by the hour and there's a cap on your earnings.  That's okay, but if you're just going to sell your time by the hour, you want to maximize the gap between what you make and what you spend.   

You are also underpaid, probably some combination of the prestige that comes with a big firm, crappy sponsorship internally, and the carrot they dangle at you to pay you in the future.  I've been in that culture, it sucked not to get paid really well until I was 33 or 34....then when I got paid really well, the money didn't offset the shitty culture. 

You get one jump out of a Big 4, if you do it you get to balance maximizing quality of life and maximizing earnings.  Maybe the answer is a smaller firm, maybe the answer is an in-house accounting job, maybe the answer is an internal government job.   Hope to see you responses

[DadJokes]

I think you're asking that question in the wrong place for a couple reasons.

There are a few accountants in here, but I highly doubt any are planning to work 30+ year careers. You mentioned potentially having a $1m salary in seven years but working for another 20+ years after that.

You'll get answers that better suit your values on Reddit's r/accounting forum.

[martyconlonontherun]

You are likely woefully underpaid. I'm an internal audit senior, not in management, making $10k more than you in Chicago. Just so you know.

Edit: reread, realized I math'ed with the wrong numbers. I'm making just a bit more than you, but the point still stands. You're underpaid for a manager role, at least in my field.

Internal Audit always have a bump over Big 4. Big 4 has the "experience" leverage and it is really hard to recruit IA. People who love auditing/dont mind travel stay at Big 4, they leave because they hate auditing or hate traveling thus no one to go to internal audit.

He can definitely make more but I wouldn't say 'woefully' underpaid as he is external vs internal.

[MissPeach]

I never did big 4 work. I tried doing public accounting as a local firm and then hated it and did corporate accounting. Eventually I got stuck at a level and would have had to go back to public accounting to get a CPA and/or get a graduate degree. So I went into a different career altogether so my suggestion might be a little dated. Many higher level corporate accounting departments would love big 4 experience though. In my area private companies paid better too. I would expect you could easily find a controller, CFO, or similar position depending on the size of the company.

If you are open to being on your own you could probably start your own firm especially if you want to do small business or tax work.

[Sibley]

You are likely woefully underpaid. I'm an internal audit senior, not in management, making $10k more than you in Chicago. Just so you know.

Edit: reread, realized I math'ed with the wrong numbers. I'm making just a bit more than you, but the point still stands. You're underpaid for a manager role, at least in my field.

Internal Audit always have a bump over Big 4. Big 4 has the "experience" leverage and it is really hard to recruit IA. People who love auditing/dont mind travel stay at Big 4, they leave because they hate auditing or hate traveling thus no one to go to internal audit.

He can definitely make more but I wouldn't say 'woefully' underpaid as he is external vs internal.

Interesting. And in internal audit, despite them having a hard time recruiting qualified auditors, they have a really hard time knowing what to do with the people who just love to audit. Let me do audits, don't make me travel a ton, and don't make me move into management and I'll stick around for a long time.

[Joel]

Former Big 4 CPA. I worked in the Sacramento market, which requires 50-60% travel but lower hours than the Bay Area. All small-ish private clients so as an audit senior, you have to know the clients financials top to bottom. Your starting salary as a manager is comparable to our market. Our market also does not produce partners, the only keep 2-3 managing directors. It’s near impossible to reach that level unless you are willing to spend time in another market.

In this market, it’s actually harder to leave at the manager level as most private companies would prefer to hire someone that also has private experience at that level. I personally think that hiring practice is garbage, but it’s the reality when many hiring managers in the corporate accounting world don’t necessarily come from audit. Thus, the sweet spot to actually leave is at the senior level as there’s a lot more opportunity, hiring managers willing to develop someone, and lower pay expectations when you leave.

In the Bay Area market though, it’s easier for someone that doesn’t understand the big picture to fly under the radar into the senior ranks... whereas that isn’t really the case in the Sacramento market.

Within 5 years of leaving, I more than doubled my salary... while working 40-45 hours a week with no travel. I had a brief stint in internal audit and I absolutely hated it. I was bored out of my mind and wanted to be on the side of the business where I could actually make a difference.

Get out. Don’t look back.

[2Cent]

So you're working 70+ stressful hours, missing your 2 kids childhood while saving 12k/year, all on the expectation that you will get a lot of money in a few years. Also, your health is already not very good, so I would say retirement savings are not really needed for you. Maybe life insurance.

This sounds harsh, but wake up man. You're sacrificing your life for nothing but a promise of more money that you probably won't need as you will work till 62 anyway. You don't get to see your children grow up again. You often also don't get your health back once it's spoiled. It's really not a good deal. Look for making a change.

[sixwings]

One of the nice things about big 4 is the national and international reach and the flexibility and ability to transfer between offices. You could look at transferring offices ti a smaller city where the hours will be more relaxed and you will have more space for a house etc.

I was in big 4 but left for industry, I don't even really do accounting anymore. Wasn't for me. The partnership lure is big but tbh the road there is so hard that it's unlikely you would get there. If you want to be a partner, your main Q is not whether you like accounting, but whether you like sales. Also I don't think most audit partners dont make 1M+. The big rainmakers will but most audit partners will be in the 400-500K range. Junior partners will make less than that even.

[calbro5]

Thanks everyone!