Engineering or Finance?

Yesterday, I got a message via LinkedIn coming from a headhunter in Japan.  He was referring me to an FPGA-related job in the financial industry.  My interest bar went up high.

One of the main reasons why I plan to take MS Finance is to be able to work in the finance industry.  As for my engineering background, I have mostly been involved in digital microelectronics, particularly with microprocessors and FPGA.  HDL (Hardware Design Language) had been my main programming skill set.  I worked in Japan implementing FPGAs for manufacturing research.  And now, FPGAs to be used in the financial industry?  Interesting!up:gucci bags

It turned out that the headhunter's hiring client was Nomura Securities (bought Lehman-Tokyo after the crash) and they plan to deploy a new system.  Btw, the headhunter was not just ordinary peon, in fact he is the director/ co-owner of Springboard Japan (HR consulting company).  Definitely a major deal.

I had a great email correspondence with the director, and so he was also able to setup a phone interview with Nomura within the day.  I knew that the interview could be technical and so I wanted to delay it the next day for me to have more time to prepare.  However, as I have already built rapport with the director, I thought that by being available for interview immediately would also give me plus points from the hiring client (it seems the position needs to be filled asap).  Eventually, I obliged for an interview at 6pm JST.

I got the call from a VP of Nomura, and I think it has also been phone-patched to the American counterpart.  It turned out to be a panel interview for me. The interview could have been easy if only the interviewers were the usual executives and not the techie ones.  Unfortunately for me, someone who have not prepared for the technical interview, the panel knows their stuff and was bombarding me with questions I couldn't answer.  The questions were not that difficult, really, it's just that... I have forgotten the answers!

It has been almost 7 months since I've been out of the industry, with no practice; totally forgetting about everything as I see myself already gearing away from engineering.  Some of the questions were even from our undergraduate research project and that was 3 years ago.  Actually, if only I have fast internet, I could have googled my way through as some questions were trivial.  For non-chemistry related majors, try answering questions related to chem way back high school. That was how I felt.

Anyway, even if my engineering background fits the position, it just proves that I no longer have interest in pursuing a career in Engineering.  Yes, I do still want to work in the finance industry, but definitely on a different field, probably focusing on IT and Finance.  This is not just a career move, it is mainly a move towards something I am passionate about.

At least for now that I assume I wouldn't get the job, there would be no dilemma for me as I will be starting my MS this September.  More time to be in the Philippines, trading on the PSE, and filling in this blog.  :p