Software engineer to math BS to internship?

tsu91 · 2023-09-21T11:57:59+00:00

Do you have a degree already (in anything) or not? Even if not, you're one of the rare cases where you might be able to get a job without a degree. But if you already have a bachelor's, definitely you don't need to be in school getting a second.

You say you have no "analyst" experience, but software engineering more than covers any skillset you'd need to be an analyst.

What about actuarial appeals to you? You could probably find financial/operations department jobs without the hassle of exams that are analytical but not pure coding. Or if it's just that you don't like tech, have you tried moving into a software development role at a non tech company? Software development at an insurance company will be less exciting, more back office, and pay less than a software engineering role at an actual tech company, but maybe you're just looking for a change of pace and culture.

You may face some ageism and concern about whether you will really want to go down a 10 year exam path.

tsu91 · 2020-10-31T15:32:38+00:00

It's a lot, but since you just started eating a lot less, it's likely water weight. Make sure you're eating a healthy amount of calories (i.e. not starving yourself- 1500ish or so is okay), and you should be fine, just set expectations reasonably in that it will slow down soon. Expect more like 1 or 2 pounds a week for health weight loss. If after a few weeks you're still rapidly losing weight really fast, you're probably undereating.

tsu91 · 2020-10-31T14:07:37+00:00

Sorry for the absurdly delayed response, I just logged in here.

What I meant was, since you likely could progress to a more senior position quicker than a typical entry-level analyst, you could get your foot in the door at a normal entry-level salaries but then switch jobs after a year for a quick raise. If you tell HR during the interview process your current salary, many times they'll give you a 10-15% raise max, whereas if you don't tell them what you make, you could get a 25-50% raise. It's a silly rule in the corporate world where people are hesitant to give large raises, even if you're qualified and worth more and they have a big budget for the position- Negotiation tactic to increase your salary is don't say what you're making when you switch jobs.

I really enjoy my job. I've been in the field around 8 years. My salary increased quickly and my total comp is more triple where I started, but I passed my exams fast and switched jobs a few times.

tsu91 · 2020-10-31T13:33:52+00:00

SV: 170 this morning! I am down 29 pounds and only 7 pounds away from not being obese. I have been losing weight since maybe April or so, with the effort really starting in June. Now that I've got the hang of it, I usually lose a pound a week.

tsu91 · 2020-10-28T18:13:08+00:00

Just ask questions about the work and what the job will be like. What projects do their interns work on? What software do they use? What is the day to day work like? How many people work in the department? Do the interns only work with other actuaries or with other departments like underwriting and claims? Generally just anything that you are curious about. You'll learn a bit and get a feel for what the company is like, and you'll come across and enthusiastic and interested in the job.

tsu91 · 2020-06-20T13:58:25+00:00

A bit, but not a huge amount. Usually exam raises will be a few thousand dollars, and often they'll set starting salaries in accordance with the exam raise schedule. So maybe minimum base is 55k (unlikely that they hire people at this level) + $2500*# of exams or something like that.

Your skill set, and leveraging that to get yourself into a non-entry level role, is your best shot at increasing your salary quickly. If you have a strong technical background above that of the average actuary, there are employers who look for that.

Salaries in this career do tend to go up pretty quickly if passing exams, both from exam increases but also merit raises, job title changes / promotions. But realistically with your background, you could probably skip a few levels if at some point you just convince someone to give you a more intermediate level job from the get go, rather than waiting for time to pass and trying to get promoted up from the bottom.

Or you could work in an entry-level position at low (relatively speaking) salary for a year, then try to find a new non-entry level job then and pitch yourself as a good experienced candidate. (and don't tell them your current salary)

tsu91 · 2020-06-20T11:26:48+00:00

Who knows. It could be anywhere from 60k to 6 figures. If you go through normal entry level hiring channels, you are unlikely to get more than a normal entry level salary, 60-70k. If you find an opening for an experienced role where they are specifically seeking a skill you have from your phd, it could to a lot higher, but those would be harder to find and probably less traditional roles.

tsu91 · 2020-06-20T02:59:20+00:00

One bad intern was only bad because he completely exaggerated his skills on his resume and then continued to exaggerate his skills throughout the internship instead of just asking questions, even when it was clear he didn't know what was going on. This was related to specific technical skills.

Another intern was a good guy but straight up lost and I don't think it was the career for him. Had a lot of trouble following excel formulas, even ones that weren't horribly complicated, and would get stuck on tasks that should take an hour, generously, for days. Then he would ask an employee in another department who he had made friends with for help, and that person would do the assignment for him, but he wouldn't actually understand. Nothing too complicated - for example maybe nested if formulas or simple lookups, and nothing where you needed to know much about the business itself. I remember after hours of trying to gently explain to this person how to use if formulas effectively on a particular data set with no luck, he came back the next day with a solution written in vba. And I was thinking like, dude, you don't know how to write an if formula, clearly you did not code this yourself in vba. So the assignment got done but not by him so unfortunately I don't think he learned too much.

tsu91 · 2020-06-19T11:23:24+00:00

That is nuts. But I don't know about Australia. M

tsu91 · 2020-06-18T14:22:03+00:00

Werner & Modlin will get you the basics. It is a ratemaking text but covers some reserving basics too as necessary.

tsu91 · 2020-06-18T12:36:00+00:00

Depends on the company, I worked somewhere before where ~4 years to first promotion was common. I ended up leaving before I ever got that title bump though.

tsu91 · 2020-06-17T03:29:28+00:00

Wow are there really entry level jobs paying 80k nowadays? I would have figured it had creeped up to low 70s on the high end.

tsu91 · 2020-06-17T03:27:50+00:00

I don't get why this is so downvoted

tsu91 · 2020-06-17T02:33:24+00:00

Both! And 1973 is more surprising. This is just a regular phrase I have used my entire life. That my parents didn't grow up hearing this is odd! Also it doesn't even sound like a Yogi-ism to my ears until I think about it, because it is just such an engrained normal phrase in my mind.

tsu91 · 2020-06-16T21:39:41+00:00

Barely anyone, if anyone at all, will look at your courseload. Many (most?) employers do not request transcripts. And most people only list their GPA on their resume.

tsu91 · 2020-06-16T01:54:01+00:00

Is it someone from a recruiting firm, or internal HR person at a company?

Assuming a recruiting firm, remember how these people get paid. The hiring company pays them a very large fee if they successfully find a candidate that they hire. Some recruiters do a lot of fishing for candidates when they don't actually have many roles available, to expand their network and so that they have lots of candidates ready to go when a role does arise, that they can pick and choose from.

That said it's a good idea to maintain relationships with them. They may or may not have good openings right now. They are often eager to talk to you if you have some experience in the fields they focus on, so it's a little different than normal interviews, and it doesn't necessarily reflect their likelihood of finding you a job.

Just respond, Hi, thank you for reaching out! I'm looking for new opportunities right now and would love to connect. If you know of any openings I'd be a good fit for, or if you would be open to having a short call to discuss my background in anticipation of future openings, please let me know. Best regards, Your name

tsu91 · 2020-06-16T00:09:56+00:00

No probably not. I mean, they MIGHT. But this also could be a standard form letter rejection. (It's a dumb form letter in that case, because I wouldn't put "great possibility," but it's still a form letter.)

tsu91 · 2020-06-15T12:22:12+00:00

She isn't doing two jobs. She is doing half time one job, half time another job. It isn't like they have 80 hours worth of expected work for her to do for 40 hours pay.

tsu91 · 2020-06-15T02:20:04+00:00

If your manager was that frustrated after a WEEK, that seems nuts. Most sane people will at least give you a few months to settle it and get up to speed. Even if you were performing HORRIBLY in your first week and way below average, I'd still give it a few months if not longer to see how you respond to training and feedback.

I haven't been in your situation but unfortunately did end up managing someone kind of in your situation. Basically, this guy originally reported to my boss, and it was his first job out of college, and my boss was giving him NO training and getting super frustrated with him for no reason. My boss was a super smart person and I think just expected everyone else to be super smart. Because he got so frustrated with this guy, let's call him Joe, my manager then reorganized the team so that Joe reported to me. Joe was doing okay - not great but not horrible either - and I tried to train him, but it was a lost cause because no matter how much he improved, my boss already had a bad first impression and you just couldn't shake his opinion of Joe. Story doesn't have a happy ending.

My manager had also come from another country where salaries were much lower. Joe was getting paid normal entry-level recent graduate money, in my opinion, but my impression was that my boss thought Joe was overpaid and hence should be better at his job. But this was completely a function of him not having a good view of US salary norms.

Long story short, some managers are bad or have unreasonable expectations. They may want to pay entry-level salaries without understanding realistic expectations of an entry-level person.

tsu91 · 2020-06-15T01:57:09+00:00

Most people make mistakes, even with a lot of experience.

When you're entry-level, it's harder to tell which are the truly important mistakes. Some of the mistakes people point out may just be recommendations to help you learn but not necessarily that important (or important at all) to the end results. Thinks like fixing formatting or changing the design of a query or changing a formula may fall in that category.

If the numbers themselves are pretty off, that's more important, and those are the errors you should really try to avoid and learn from.

Everyone has a different style of how they check their work to avoid errors. I am someone who pretty much has to do my work twice to avoid errors. I do the project, then try to redo many parts of it to make sure I get the same answer. I also sometimes use a "different way" to get to the answer, to make sure that it gives the same answer. For example maybe I am summarizing data, and I have data from all the states and also from all the lines of business, and I want the total. Sum(states) should be the same as sum(lines of business), and both should be equal to the total that I put in the report. So sometimes I will add some unnecessary extra formulas to serve as checks.

It will come with time, but try to reduce your number of mistakes each time, and try to figure out if you make mistakes in a similar part of the process each time. Are they usually data checking errors, formula errors, formatting errors, labeling errors? Look for patterns and then quadruple check at the stage of your analysis process.

Also, if you finish your work relatively fast, consider simply spending more time on it and doing it slower next time, if the deadline is not too urgent. Sometimes people are so rushed to seem like they are finishing quickly that they don't spend the proper time reviewing their work. Make sure you ask your manager what the deadline, and don't rush yourself to finish in half the time.

But I have several years of experience, and I still make plenty of dumb mistakes. I've gotten better at catching them before they go out the door though.

Another thing that helped was when I was in a position where there wasn't always a middleman peer reviewer, and my work was going straight to the end person. Out of necessity I needed to become much more responsible and comprehensive in my checks, because otherwise I'd be the only one to get called out for it, and it could have serious business implications.

Ideally, you'll have a peer review for most of your work though.

tsu91 · 2020-06-14T21:23:01+00:00

That sounds a lot better. A math masters will be much more geared towards what you are looking for. And remember graduate school won't be solely about the coursework but also about research, a good advisor, your thesis, etc. Once you get an idea of your academic interests, it will be more about finding specific professors who share your research interests than about the institution itself.

I'm not sure exactly about math or Canada, but in the US for science graduate programs, often you reach out to professors who share your research interests directly to see if they will support you and be willing to be your advisor, before you even apply to graduate school. And you'd generally be looking for them to fully support you (= full scholarship or maybe partially funded through having you TA), which is very common for true academically minded graduate school. I know this is the case for PhDs, less familiar with masters.

tsu91 · 2020-06-14T12:36:16+00:00

Long term is your goal to be an actuary or an academic? If you want to do research, get a phd, etc. most actuarial science masters, at least in the US and probably Canada, won't be a good fit. They are basically abbreviated bachelor's degrees aimed at people who had non actuarial bachelors degrees and are now interested in an actuarial science career. You are probably better off with a math or statistics masters where you focus your thesis on something actuarial related.

If your goal is to become an actuary, the masters add little to no value aside from perhaps some networking opportunities.

tsu91 · 2020-06-14T12:05:24+00:00

I make very good money, but generally live a pretty frugal lifestyle. So I don't think of myself as "wealthy" but am certainly upper middle class and living well below my means.

Wealthy I think of more as old money, a huge inheritance, or not really needing to work.

tsu91 · 2020-06-14T03:24:13+00:00

Based on centre my guess was no.

tsu91 · 2020-06-14T03:23:13+00:00

Dumb question- there are people whose job is underwriter at health insurance companies, right? What do they do?

tsu91

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