FAANG software engineering to medicine

[abcdengineer]

Hey everyone,

I'm an almost-26 year-old software engineer, currently working at a FAANG company, and I'm trying to understand whether a nontraditional path to medicine is possible. I've read the other similar threads on this forum, but thought my situation and questions were unique enough to post.

Reasons to switch: very similar to other threads here, so I'll be quick. Software isn't fulfilling anymore for me. A quick list of reasons: the corporate work interactions, the lack of societal impact in day-to-day work, the general lack of stability in the software industry, etc. Growing up, I always wanted to be an engineer. But over time, I've realized my values may not align well with engineering long term. So I'm trying to understand my options.

I also realize I need to spend significant time shadowing a physician to truly understand if this is what I want.

Stats:

• B.S. in Electrical Engineering + CS from a top 5 CS / Engineering school. 3.82 cumulative GPA, science GPA about the same (I would need to calculate it)
• 4-5 years work experience + 2 internships, all at FAANG / software companies
• No real research experience or relationships with past professors. So letters of rec from my BS wouldn't be strong, but letters from my workplace would be.
• Current income: 290k (180k base salary + bonus / stocks). I hope to be promoted in the next 1-2 years, where total compensation can grow to 350-450k. So the opportunity cost is large.
• High school SAT score (I was told this may matter?): 2290
• Would need to work a 2-3 more years to save enough liquid cash to pay for med school / med school prep (majority of current savings are tied up in market investments / retirement accounts). I do not want any parental support. My total assets are valued between 500-700k without any debt.

My questions:

1. Am I too old to start this journey (including time to save)?
2. For other nontraditional students, was it worth it?
3. Does my background set me up to be a competitive applicant?
4. From what I see online, there are 2 recommended routes: post-bacc program for career changers, or taking prerecs at a 4 year university as a non-degree student.
   1. I see many post-bacc programs require 1 academic letter of rec, but may make an exception if the individual has been working for a while, where the quantity is undefined. Do I generally qualify?
   2. If I go the non-degree student route, is it recommended to do this full-time or part-time with a job?
5. Will my lack-of-relationships with past professors hurt my application chances as a non-traditional student? (both for post-bacc and regular medical school)

Happy to hear any thoughts or perspectives. Thank you!

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[gyngyn]

1. No
2. I would not be considered non-trad now, though I was at the time.
3. Your current job neither helps nor hurts. The gpa helps, though.
4. There are plenty of post-bacs that will take you as is. Alternatively, you can do a diy post bac at your own pace.
5. No one expects that you should have predicted a need for an ongoing relationship with undergrad professors!

 

[abcdengineer]

1. No
2. I would not be considered non-trad now, though I was at the time.
3. Your current job neither helps nor hurts. The gpa helps, though.
4. There are plenty of post-bacs that will take you as is. Alternatively, you can do a diy post bac at your own pace.
5. No one expects that you should have predicted a need for an ongoing relationship with undergrad professors!

Appreciate your response!

Re. 2. What helped you confirm a switch was what you wanted?

Re. 5. Fair point My only concern is I will have 0 recommendation letters from an academic setting when applying to a post-bacc. I've checked a few program requirements, and they all seem to prefer 1 academic letter.

 

[gyngyn]

My only concern is I will have 0 recommendation letters from an academic setting when applying to a post-bacc. I've checked a few program requirements, and they all seem to prefer 1 academic letter.

Contact your favorite choices. I'll bet they take you, given the circumstances.

 

[abcdengineer]

Contact your favorite choices. I'll bet they take you, given the circumstances.

Good point, will do! In general, would you recommend the post-bacc route or self-study + 4 year university classes?

 

[gyngyn]

Good point, will do! In general, would you recommend the post-bacc route or self-study + 4 year university classes?

Depending on your location, community college would be fine. You are a career changer, not a grade re-mediator.
You just need to take the courses you need to provide content for the MCAT and prepare you for the pre-test review.

The choice of diy (or not) is a personal preference.

 

[abcdengineer]

Depending on your location, community college would be fine. You are a career changer, not a grade re-mediator.
You just need to take the courses you need to provide content for the MCAT and prepare you for the pre-test review.

The choice of diy (or not) is a personal preference.

Makes sense. And would 1-2 professional letters of recommendation (LOR) + 1 clinical experience LOR work for directly applying to med schools? I see mixed responses about this online, and that the benefit of a post-bacc is getting a "committee" LOR with sufficient academic performance.

I realize I'm probably overthinking this, but just trying to get all the info Thanks

 

[gyngyn]

Makes sense. And would 1-2 professional letters of recommendation (LOR) + 1 clinical experience LOR work for directly applying to med schools? I see mixed responses about this online, and that the benefit of a post-bacc is getting a "committee" LOR with sufficient academic performance.

I realize I'm probably overthinking this, but just trying to get all the info Thanks

The number and type of letters varies by school. A committee letter is preferable (when available) everywhere but Utah. Individual letters are acceptable, though. Relatively few MD schools require "clinical" letters. Check with your state public schools to see if you are a resident of a state that does. What do you mean by "professional" letters?
These specifics can all be found in the MSAR.

 

[2010houston]

From what I have heard from friends - you’re going to be very frustrated by the way you are treated as a student / resident / even employee-faculty in medicine.
You’re probably used to lounges, free (good) food, employee sponsored gifts etc etc - there’s very very VERY little of that in medicine, and you’re often treated poorly by your employer , even at the faculty level!!

With that said - I love what I do and couldn’t imagine doing anything else; also nontrad and would do 10/10x again. Medicine is very very rewarding in a different type of way if that is the kind of person that you are.

I imagine that you will score very well on the MCAT and will have no trouble getting in. This is a HUGE opportunity cost for you. Depending on what specialty, going to take you MANY MANY years to get anywhere close to your current salary. If money is a motivator for you, I would strongly consider how that’s going to affect your happiness.

Best of luck to you with whatever you choose!

 

[confused_doc]

Are you sure you want to do medicine? It's one of those careers that looks a lot better from the outside looking in and you really need the right personality type to truly enjoy it and for it to be worth it. Work is work at the end of the day and nothing is better than hanging out with your family and friends. I'd try to FIRE on the FAANG salary if I were you and volunteer or something if I wanted humanitarian fulfillment.

 

[abcdengineer]

The number and type of letters varies by school. A committee letter is preferable (when available) everywhere but Utah. Individual letters are acceptable, though. Relatively few MD schools require "clinical" letters. Check with your state public schools to see if you are a resident of a state that does. What do you mean by "professional" letters?
These specifics can all be found in the MSAR.

By professional letters I mean those written by my seniors in my current profession: engineering directors / leads etc. And thank you, I'll definitely take a closer look at the requirements of each school.

 

[abcdengineer]

From what I have heard from friends - you’re going to be very frustrated by the way you are treated as a student / resident / even employee-faculty in medicine.
You’re probably used to lounges, free (good) food, employee sponsored gifts etc etc - there’s very very VERY little of that in medicine, and you’re often treated poorly by your employer , even at the faculty level!!

With that said - I love what I do and couldn’t imagine doing anything else; also nontrad and would do 10/10x again. Medicine is very very rewarding in a different type of way if that is the kind of person that you are.

I imagine that you will score very well on the MCAT and will have no trouble getting in. This is a HUGE opportunity cost for you. Depending on what specialty, going to take you MANY MANY years to get anywhere close to your current salary. If money is a motivator for you, I would strongly consider how that’s going to affect your happiness.

Best of luck to you with whatever you choose!

Thanks for your thoughtful response!

You are right; engineers in my company are pampered to the point of excess. Free food, perks, benefits, etc. I've experienced that all for that last 4-5 years, and I'm very thankful and fortunate to be where I am (financially and professionally). I've lived in Silicon Valley and it's almost unimaginable to do anything other than tech there in many social circles. Going back to being treated poorly will be a huge adjustment, and will probably seem crazy to folks in my field.

But I often find myself asking: can I get more from my career? My day-to-day work is about building tech to handle large scale without much personal interaction; preventing revenue loss by X%, building a system to handle billions of users / transactions, optimizing processes by Y%. It can be satisfying, but it's very impersonal, and I'm not driven by the money and perks anymore. Again, I realize I'm in a privileged place to even ask these kinds of questions, and I'm just exploring options.

Overall, I 100% agree that this decision can't be made lightly, and that I better be sure.

Can you speak a bit about what you found rewarding in Medicine?

 

[abcdengineer]

Are you sure you want to do medicine? It's one of those careers that looks a lot better from the outside looking in and you really need the right personality type to truly enjoy it and for it to be worth it. Work is work at the end of the day and nothing is better than hanging out with your family and friends. I'd try to FIRE on the FAANG salary if I were you and volunteer or something if I wanted humanitarian fulfillment.

FIRE was originally my goal. And see my above response, I'm not 100% sure yet, but medicine may be a better value fit. Agreed about the time with friends and family, as there would be significant sacrifice there.

But I figured I'm financially secure enough to consider a career shift if I realllyyy feel unfulfilled in the next few years. So just trying to understand my options. Thanks for your reply!

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

It’s likely not a better value fit as a number of factors will erode physician salaries over the next 15 years. You may pay 400k only to make an annual salary of 150k

*unless you mean value in the non monetary sense

 

[abcdengineer]

It’s likely not a better value fit as a number of factors will erode physician salaries over the next 15 years. You may pay 400k only to make an annual salary of 150k

*unless you mean value in the non monetary sense

Yep I meant in a personal values sense. Financially, the career shift would set me back est. $1-1.5 million including opportunity cost and cost of school.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Personally, I feel like once you have a certain amount of money, you should just do something you want in life. I left a relatively high earning job in finance (albeit not as much as you) to attend medical school and don’t regret it but it also helps that I got a full tuition scholarship so it brought the cost down significantly

 

[abcdengineer]

Personally, I feel like once you have a certain amount of money, you should just do something you want in life. I left a relatively high earning job in finance (albeit not as much as you) to attend medical school and don’t regret it but it also helps that I got a full tuition scholarship so it brought the cost down significantly

Agreed. It's just a question of how much is enough money, and when to pull the trigger. And nice! I imagine a full tuition scholarship definitely makes the decision to switch easier.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

FWIW, using official school communications websites only:

Why a Google engineer became a doctor at USC

Hugh Gordon always wanted to be a doctor, but fell into software engineering in high school. After a few years as a Google engineer, he realized he still had the desire to become a doctor, as well as the opportunity. He's now a clinician at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

news.usc.edu

Career-Changing From Software Engineering to Medicine

Despite traveling and working around the globe and working at lucrative tech startups, Bradley Heinz kept feeling the draw to medicine.

voices.berkeley.edu

 

[gyngyn]

By professional letters I mean those written by my seniors in my current profession: engineering directors / leads etc. And thank you, I'll definitely take a closer look at the requirements of each school.

A single letter from a long-term employer is fine.
Make sure that they know what we are looking for: https://www.aamc.org/system/files?file=2019-09/lettersguidelinesbrochure.pdf

 

[Just D.O. it]

Current income: 290k (180k base salary + bonus / stocks). I hope to be promoted in the next 1-2 years, where total compensation can grow to 350-450k. So the opportunity cost is large.

I'm going to be real with you chief, not a single doctor I know loves the job so much that they would have trained 10 extra years if they already could get a 300k yearly job. Your opportunity cost is humungous.

Yep I meant in a personal values sense. Financially, the career shift would set me back est. $1-1.5 million including opportunity cost and cost of school.

Your math is a little off. Lets say your salary is 300k and you don't get any promotion to make it easier to follow.

(-300 x 1 year full time post bacc) + lets assume during the waiting year to hear back they let you work so 0 money lost + ((-50 med school tuition + -300 income lost) x 4) + ((65 residency salary + -300 income loss) x 3) = 2.405 MILLION DOLLAR LOSS

AGAIN THIS ASSUMES NO PROMOTIONS.

Medicine is great. I like learning about it, and I definitely preferred it to the other options I had. BUT, Every first year med student I know would trade positions with you in a heartbeat.

My perspective is that you're maybe a little burnt out from your job and are over glamorizing being a doc somewhat. It is ultimately a job, with headaches and paperwork and monotony and having to get up in the middle of the night. In fact, medicine is among the top in terms of professions with high rates of burn out.

Maybe cutting back your hours somewhat or planning for an earlier retirement is a more sensible move here.

Perhaps you could save enough to retire and then maybe train as an EMT, that's a much more exciting job tbh and a hell of a lot less headache to get it.

 

[abcdengineer]

Apologies for the late replies everyone! Will respond to each individually now.

 

[abcdengineer]

I'm going to be real with you chief, not a single doctor I know loves the job so much that they would have trained 10 extra years if they already could get a 300k yearly job. Your opportunity cost is humungous.


Your math is a little off. Lets say your salary is 300k and you don't get any promotion to make it easier to follow.

(-300 x 1 year full time post bacc) + lets assume during the waiting year to hear back they let you work so 0 money lost + ((-50 med school tuition + -300 income lost) x 4) + ((65 residency salary + -300 income loss) x 3) = 2.405 MILLION DOLLAR LOSS

AGAIN THIS ASSUMES NO PROMOTIONS.

Medicine is great. I like learning about it, and I definitely preferred it to the other options I had. BUT, Every first year med student I know would trade positions with you in a heartbeat.

My perspective is that you're maybe a little burnt out from your job and are over glamorizing being a doc somewhat. It is ultimately a job, with headaches and paperwork and monotony and having to get up in the middle of the night. In fact, medicine is among the top in terms of professions with high rates of burn out.

Maybe cutting back your hours somewhat or planning for an earlier retirement is a more sensible move here.

Perhaps you could save enough to retire and then maybe train as an EMT, that's a much more exciting job tbh and a hell of a lot less headache to get it.

Your math is correct, thank you. My estimate was off-the-cuff and inaccurate. And that's ignoring 7% inflation-adjusted compounding interest from the market. I'm a single 26 year old without any responsibilities, so I can afford a higher risk allocation in my market investments. The pay scale also for my industry grows significantly with seniority (2 promotions over 5-10 years would bump me to the 500k range).

Overall, it's a huge cost, and this is probably stemming from significant burnout / apathy towards my job. There are still factors that draw me towards medicine, but my decision needs to be rational.

Thanks for your thoughtful response. Your point about it being just a job makes sense. I'm sure there are plenty of headaches of which I'm not even remotely aware.

Early retirement + a passion career afterwards may work. I've been told by my contacts in medicine, if I really wanted to, I could pursue the medical field after early retirement (although they still look at me like I'm crazy when I suggest that). For now, I'll probably double down on my career and set better work life boundaries to avoid burnout. Then maybe revisit this decision when money is not a concern.

Thank you everyone!

 

[RustBeltOnc]

Please don't do this. With your background, you won't be able to do any physician job that requires only a three year residency so the opportunity cost (in $) is much higher than calculated above.

 

[bomba]

Do you have any clinical experience--volunteering or otherwise? If not, that should be your first step. Common advice is to volunteer in a hospice setting because you'll quickly determine if you enjoy working with sick and dying people, which at the end of the day is what you're committing to if you pursue this path.

 

[Avi Mahajan]

Please don't do this. With your background, you won't be able to do any physician job that requires only a three year residency so the opportunity cost (in $) is much higher than calculated above.

Why is this the case?

 

[RustBeltOnc]

The OP won't be able to do primary care type speciality that is pretty much what you can do after three years of PGY - fam medicine, int med (hospitalist/internist), pediatrics. There won't be enough cognitive stimulation involved being paged with the results of the cookie swallow exam at 2AM while working as hospitalist. So, he's looking at more like 4,5,6 years of training after medical school. The opportunity cost is way too steep.

 

[RustBeltOnc]

Why is this the case?

The OP won't be able to do primary care type speciality that is pretty much what you can do after three years of PGY - fam medicine, int med (hospitalist/internist), pediatrics. There won't be enough cognitive stimulation involved being paged with the results of the cookie swallow exam at 2AM while working as hospitalist. So, he's looking at more like 4,5,6 years of training after medical school. The opportunity cost is way too steep.

 

[PandaBaer]

I'll add my 2 cents as a former FAANG non-SDE, current MS3.
1. Background: I was a couple years older than you when I switched, I had a little more to do to polish my app due to my UG GPA but ahead on foundational knowledge because my major was more aligned. I was financially secure but not independent, also did not have as large of an opportunity cost as you as I was not in a tech role. I have regressed significantly in finances due to the enormous loan burden. I also had a very strong innate interest in medicine and desire for service.
2. Pathway: returned to my UG clinical job, gained new skills and certs while brushing up my pre-reqs, decided which path to go, EMS vs RN vs APP vs MD/DO. Did an SMP due to prior grades, accepted mid program. Still ended up being ~4 years from resignation to matriculation. There's a couple other tech to med career changers, non are FAANG in my cohort though. Some are looking at the shorter residencies but I think given the drive of someone who was top 5 CS + FAANG, a shorter residency (sub)specialty is less likely and probably similarly unfulfilling.
3. Outlook: I'm a pretty frugal and stoic person and worked in management so my interests have led me towards leadership/admin opportunities. Therefore I have a greater understanding/tolerance of and perception/facade of control over the less palatable aspects of medical training. I find the hardest part to be patient interactions, some are just frustrating and unproductive. If you are currently railing against corporate culture and bureaucracy, you should know medicine is much more highly regulated by many more entities. Including all levels of government which do not tolerate the "break stuff, move fast" mentality of tech. But, your particular set of experiences and expertise is highly needed, though not necessarily desired, in medicine and you could make a huge impact in whichever area you choose to focus.

Summary: it's never too late to switch, especially if you feel financially secure/independent, I have a classmate who is FI in their 50s. For your specific case the opportunity costs are steep and most would consider not worth it, but value is in the eye of the beholder.
You may want to plan for a long runway, not just to fulfill requirements but also to figure out why and what you want to do in medicine.
Medicine is a tough profession and there are many aspects of it that are terrible. I would hazard to guess the majority of physicians are ill-suited for the current practice of medicine, partly due to the way we train, the constraints of the current system, and the nature of service jobs. A larger majority are probably burnt out, greater than those in tech, imo.
If you choose to embark on this path, it'll be at least a decade till you have some semblance of control over your life. I'm by nature a workaholic and accustomed to 60-90+hr/wk of variable schedules, and I still don't feel like I'm doing enough, which is what you can expect for the vast majority of medical training. If you have family or significant social ties/responsibilities, make sure they are on board or be prepared to lose that aspect of your life.
Don't do this as a reprieve from FAANG, it is most likely going to be more stressful and demoralizing. Your skills are valuable but they will probably not be recognized or cherished and you will need to work hard to demonstrate your worth.
Upside is you get to learn, see, and do some really amazing things that only a relatively small portion of people understand, ~0.001-1% depending on specialty.