Careers in Personal Finance or Fintech Companies

Non-investing personal finance issues including insurance, credit, real estate, taxes, employment and legal issues such as trusts and wills.
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jimmy2017
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Sep 25, 2017 8:22 pm

Careers in Personal Finance or Fintech Companies

Post by jimmy2017 »

Hi All,
Like many in this community, my spouse has become very passionate about getting our financial house in order and beginning to advise our family and friends on how to do the same! Besides the obvious financial advisor role, are there other careers in personal finance or financial education you would recommend exploring? How about interesting Fintech companies?
Thank you!
alex_686
Posts: 13320
Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2015 1:39 pm

Re: Careers in Personal Finance or Fintech Companies

Post by alex_686 »

Most roles in financial advising are sales roles. I will differ with most Bogleheads that these people can bring value in a ethical method. But it is still sales.

I am less familiar with fin tech but I strongly suspect that most roles are in in software development or those that deep technical knowledge of finance, brokerage, and banking regulations and the plumbing of the various systems.

For context I may have been in similar shoes as your wife but found my career in a fascinating but obscure nitch that is pretty far from the retail side.

I was adjacent to the FR side for many years. It is a good fit for some. However, I would lump about 85% in the same category as real estate brokers. It is a job in sales.

For a while my job was to help launch baby brokers. It is a rough business in the retail market. Not my first choice.
Former brokerage operations & mutual fund accountant. I hate risk, which is why I study and embrace it.
Soon2BXProgrammer
Posts: 3289
Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2014 10:30 pm

Re: Careers in Personal Finance or Fintech Companies

Post by Soon2BXProgrammer »

alex_686 wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 11:09 pm Most roles in financial advising are sales roles. I will differ with most Bogleheads that these people can bring value in a ethical method. But it is still sales.

I am less familiar with fin tech but I strongly suspect that most roles are in in software development or those that deep technical knowledge of finance, brokerage, and banking regulations and the plumbing of the various systems.
These two statements are very true... Even if someone attempts to be a true fiduciary with a fixed fee compensation model, they are selling themselves and selling that they can help. The people who sell are the ones who make money... (If someone isn't the rainmaker, and are an advisor in a business, their compensation is somewhat limited because they aren't the rainmaker)

In Fintech, the money is in software development. There are advice and education roles, but most of fintech is actually trying to get rid of the costly labor of advisors and are willing to pay expensive engineers to help do that.

You can sort of see this when you look at this careers page.. https://www.wealthfront.com/careers Lots of jobs besides their CSR role which is a license financial position (series 7/66)

https://boards.greenhouse.io/m1finance
https://www.betterment.com/careers/current-openings
Earned 43 (and counting) credit hours of financial planning related education from a regionally accredited university, but I am not your advisor.
stoptothink
Posts: 15368
Joined: Fri Dec 31, 2010 8:53 am

Re: Careers in Personal Finance or Fintech Companies

Post by stoptothink »

alex_686 wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 11:09 pmI am less familiar with fin tech but I strongly suspect that most roles are in in software development or those that deep technical knowledge of finance, brokerage, and banking regulations and the plumbing of the various systems.
My wife works for a newly minted fintech "unicorn". She's not a developer and had zero prior knowledge of finance or banking, she's in customer success (essentially sales for this company). Her previous job was in sales for a data security firm. She did have to spend a little bit of time educating herself about basic finance and accounting because she spends her days talking to CFOs of large entities, but she's definitely no expert on the topics and is absolutely killing it. I know some of her co-workers have backgrounds in finance or accounting, but certainly not all of them.
cabould
Posts: 34
Joined: Wed Mar 17, 2021 8:12 am

Re: Careers in Personal Finance or Fintech Companies

Post by cabould »

This seems like a very broad question. What type of professional skills does your spouse have? Most financial and fintech firms have many different departments, e.g. HR, Accounting, IT, Operations, etc.

It may be difficult to get a job that one is not skilled to do. It seems like many people that have gone into financial advising have some sort of finance background, albeit a degree or previous work experience. Your spouse may be able to get a job at Edward Jones, but that is more or less a sales position. If they are not skilled in the art of selling, they will always be struggling to build their book and thus their commission check.
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