Reinventing once again
TLTR: consulting is boring me to death and want to get closer to product, but may lack experience so looking for transitional roles.
Apologies for the ambiguous title; keen to get the perspective of someone who’s been in the same situation.
I (32M) used to be an early career academic (engineering) before moving to strategy consulting. It’s been nearly 5 years and found a way to make it work. I have a tremendous WLB for the industry that is notoriously intense and a TC of around £180k; of which the vast majority base. I work almost exclusively with B2B software companies.
However, lately it has been a dread. While I don’t work long hours, the idea of spending my day reviewing power points and arguing with partners kills my soul every evening and every weekend. I want to get closer to building things.
Has anyone transitioned from consulting to new roles like AI strategist? It seems at the intersection between strategy, gtm and product and could be a good stepping stone towards something that would engage my brain again. Some of the leading AI labs may be too big a stretch I fear. I don’t code anymore albeit I build a fair bit with Claude.
Any suggestions from someone who’s considered this before? Any obvious stepping stone to get where I want to be, which is closer to building things.
Edit: a critical piece of info I forgot. I believe it would be impossible to sustain this balance as the next promotion is the role pre equity and only granted to those that show the potential for partnership. Ultimately this would need sacrificing my balance for greater client engagement.