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Ask HN: Any Tech Jobs for Accounting Majors?

3 points by lopatin ↗ HN
My friend and I are both college seniors. I'm in CS and he's Accounting. He's non technical but constantly shows interest in new startups and a hint of jealousy that I get to be part of the tech world.

I want to help him but sometimes I don't know what to say. He thinks like an entrepreneur but lacks experience/commitment to follow through with his ideas. I suggested to teach him to code and while he's kind of interested, I honestly don't know what he would do with the knowledge. It doesn't make sense for him to go the engineering route. Anyone would agree that he's a "business guy" and definitely not a coder at heart.

Despite all the things against him, he still has a strong desire to work in technology. He feels like he's missing out on a lot and I can't say that he's wrong. I wouldn't move to another industry if you held a gun to my head (ok .. maybe .. you get my point). So I'm asking the community for ideas or experiences. He's going for his CPA right now. Most job descriptions ask for Sales, Marketing, and Product Development? While he could go for sales, it doesn't make sense to throw away 4 years of Accounting from a top university and a CPA. What kind of opportunities are there for people with good accounting skills and some tech knowledge? Hopefully in the valley so we can room together in SF :)

Thanks HN

6 comments

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rdouble
Any popular ecommerce site that sells stuff has teams of accountants.

PCI compliance auditor

SOX compliance auditor

LarryMade2
There are plenty of accounting software companies, some sell packages some are SAAS. Those "product development" positions are probably the technical side of accounting.
dccoolgai
Speaking as someone who has had to hire them, "bridgers" between accounting and tech make whaletons of cash. General Ledgers, etc. aren't the sexy new thing, but every company has them and most devs want to have nothing to do with it. == $$$. If you don't believe me, go try to hire one. Forget your friend learning tech; why aren't you learning accounting?
rexf
As someone who has a big 4 accounting background and left it for Ruby on Rails, I'd love to find out more about bridgers. dccoolgai, I'd love to find out more. My contact info is in my profile. Thanks
yitong
What exactly do you mean by bridgers? Essentially CPAs who do the accounting in tech companies? As someone in the exact same position as OP's friend, I'd like to find out more. To what degree do they need to be tech savvy?