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Some humor for you thirsty people....
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Rising Star
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New spider man was sick
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It doesn’t make sense at any age
Enjoy
Chief
It depends. Does your 40 year old friend want to spend 14 hours a day resizing text boxes in power point because a 24 year old with 2 years of working experience told him to do it?
Rising Star
No. Cut off for partner is like 35-38 right? Why the long hours if there is no hope for the pot of gold at the end? If it's just for the varied experience then sure, go for it. But by that age, unless you are switching careers or it was always your dream, it might be more worthwhile to be a private contractor. I've seen SMEs join and then get poached by the client a year later, and they took it due to the poor WLB in consulting.
Chief
SC1 - Depends on where you go. I personally know at least 10 software engineers with 10+ yoe that haven’t broken into 6 figures yet.
What level? Prior experience?
PwC 1 - Given that OP asked a generic, theoretical question... isn’t your sarcastic comment noob?
Like all things it depends on the person...however after having trained and worked with many lateral hires I would say don’t do it lightly. Most experienced laterals do not succeed fresh into consulting (maybe 10% at best). This is because they are generally not prepared for the learning curve and the level of personal sacrifice required to solidify consulting foundations. If you are ready to go back into career building mode, and a dose of humility - often delivered by people you will consider to be far less experienced than you - then give it a crack, but have a plan b.
It’ll be a push, let them know they will be doing highly meaningless work in the initial 1-2 years, dealing with a host of professionally immature individuals that will undermine their skillsets for not knowing some powerpoint tricks. I went into it in my early 30’s post divorce, I was looking for a complete change of pace and consulting fit the bill, things worked out in the end but I did question my decision more than once- especially when dealing with 26 yo beta managers who couldn’t lead teams nor properly handle clients.
Worked with an almost 40 year old senior (age doesn’t matter to be honest...Decide to hire/not hire somebody because of his or her age is a discrimination). But this senior came from a technical background in industry for more than 10 years and did not suit the consulting/big 4 culture in general. Getting adjusted to the hours is rough, and having to take advice from managers/SMs who are more or less 10 years younger than him was a hard pill to swallow at first. He’s still here so, who knows.
I have an uncle who was a CIO and after he exited, did work in consulting for two years.
The firm he went to was paying him 7 figures as an “Exec Director” for not that many hours.
So there are always paths.
Chief
I imagine with 10+ YOE as a SWE could get hired somewhere as a SME of some kind. Or join a subcontracting company. We have a lot of experienced folks who work as contractors in typically very technical roles and they can enjoy the nice pay without having to play all the office politics, typically.