Consulting vs Software engineering
Consulting sells judgement on a problem and software engineering builds the product. Consulting pays a salary and a small bonus with no equity until the partnership, and asks for travel and long weeks in return. Engineering pays base, a modest bonus and equity that vests over four years, and its pay follows level rather than tenure.
The comparison people make is about money, and the larger difference is what each job leaves you able to do. Consulting leaves you able to structure any problem and present it to anyone, and engineering leaves you able to make the thing. Both lead into product management, from opposite sides.
By Surojit Chakraverti, founder of L3VLUP and an investor running a long-short healthcare and technology equities strategy.
Side by side
| Consulting | Software engineering | |
|---|---|---|
| What you actually do | Analysis, interviews and slides, for a client, on a different industry every few months. | Design, write, test and run software for one product, in a team that stays together for years. |
| Hours | Roughly 45 to 75 a week depending on the practice, and often away from home during the week. | Roughly 40 to 50, with genuine variance by firm and team. On-call rotations are the main exception. |
| How pay is structured | Base plus a small bonus, with promotion on a timetable. A profit share replaces salary only at partner. | Base plus a modest cash bonus plus equity that vests over four years. Equity is most of senior compensation. |
| How fast you can move | A fixed ladder with fixed timings: a promotion every two to three years, and the pyramid narrows sharply at the top. | Level, not tenure. A strong engineer can reach senior in four years or take eight, and the pay follows the level. |
| What the first job makes possible | Corporate strategy, private equity, start-up operations, product management. Mostly roles where you recommend and others build. | Engineering management, product management, founding a company. Mostly roles where the skill is making something work. |
| Bottom of the ladder (total, midpoint) | Not published by the firms, so no figure is quoted. Entry pay at the strategy firms sits near the top of the graduate market. | $100k (Entry) |
| Top of the ladder (total, midpoint) | Partner pay is a share of the partnership’s profit, with a wide spread between partners, so no single midpoint describes it. | $410k (Principal) |
| What the cash leaves out | No equity until the partnership. The Office for National Statistics records median incentive pay of about 7% of pay for UK management consultants and business analysts, which is small beside the equity in a technology package. | Equity is missing from these bands and is most of senior technology compensation. A grant vests over four years and moves with the share price, so two people on identical offers a year apart can end up far apart. Compare offers on annualised equity, never on the headline grant. Note also that Amazon runs a level behind: their SDE I is L4 where Google and Meta start at 3. |
Converted from British pounds to US dollars at the European Central Bank euro reference rates of 2 November 2026. These are London market figures: converted, not a local figure.
Pay figures where they appear are midpoints of aggregated, rounded London market bands. Consulting pay is described rather than quoted, and its one public benchmark is named on the career path. Ladders and pay: consulting and software engineering.
Which one to pick
Consulting
Take consulting if you want breadth, early exposure to senior people and a fixed ladder, and you can accept the travel. It suits people who have not yet decided what to be good at.
Software engineering
Take engineering if you want your compensation to track your level rather than your seniority and you would rather have the evenings. Compare offers on annualised equity, never on the headline grant.
Questions about this comparison
Discussions open here soon.
Other comparisons
For open roles and deadlines across every one of these, see the opportunity tracker.