To start with I have started to doubt if at all it is possible to have a career of a software developer/C.S. researcher without any glass ceiling.

Here is my case: 1: I am 22 years and 3 weeks old

2: I am doing Masters at top 7 school in C.S. (and by the time I graduate I would still be 22 years and 11 months old)

3: Even though I am interested in C.S. research, I am scared of doing Ph.D., if I dont get into top few universities.

4: I did my undergraduation in a hard engineering subject in a foreign country. (i.e. I am Fresh of the Boat Alien)

5: I am really good at C.S.,I have authored few papers in a reputed international journal (About application on machine learning in my undergrad field) + presented a poster in well attended C.S. conference, while getting an NSF fellowship for the same. Plus currently I have a cool internship at a billion $ market-cap Company, where I get to work on Hadoop and stuff.

Now here is my problem: I love solving problems, unlike people who got interested in programming by making websites, I got amazed by its ability to solve problems by computation. Hence I dont want a job which involves significant amount of (for lack of appropriate term) enterprise fizz-buzz programming. I would love to become an Analyst in company like McKinsey or Bains or BCG etc. Though such jobs are extremely hard to get My beloved other option is to join any of Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Microsoft. These again hard if not harder than above ones.

This leaves me with three fail-safe options: 1: Join a startup (I dont mind low salary, since my major objective is to pay back my loan + I am low maintainance person), however startup rarely take student on F1 [yet I can work in US for 29 moth post graduation without H1B]

2: Join a PhD Course after a year of job or right after the degree.

3: Work on Application development job for three years and then try applying for an MBA.

My Final Aim is to get an MBA from a really good university. This is in turn because over course of a year I have realized that except for the top 10 tech companies it is very hard to grow as an engineer/developer. I totally resent the comparison with the whole IT guy, which I routinely get in my current workplace, where I am doing far important and useful things.

Lastly I would love to get a Quant Job, however entry level jobs in Algorithmic Trading, even for developers seems to be missing. And all I can find are jobs that require an experience of 5 years in Java.

Please help me... Thanks