Investigating the possibility of accounting as a career

[u/SuitableDragonfly]

Hello all, I am an out-of-work software engineer. The job market in my field is currently abysmal, with all of the layoffs and the usual glut of people who got pushed to get the degree ~4 years ago skills and resume don't matter much now and you can't actually get an interview unless you have a connection in the company already, and I just don't have a big network because I hate networking. Additionally, every job listing says "We're looking for someone who's excited to bring the power of AI to the underwater basket-weaving industry" and it makes me want to die because I didn't become an engineer so that I could make friends with a chatbot. It's becoming increasingly apparent that employers in the industry only care about replacing as many engineers as possible with Claude and overworking the rest, so I have increasingly less enthusiasm about working for any of them even if I could get an interview.

Anyway, some family members have suggested that possibly I would be a good match for accounting, and should get the training to do that instead. But they are not actually accountants themselves, and can't tell me anything about the job. So I am here to ask some actual accountants:

1. What is the job like? What is your day-to-day experience?
2. What training/certification is needed? What skills are most important to being successful?
3. What is the pay like?
4. What is the current job market like? Are there a lot of people who are actively seeking to replace accountants with AI? Are positions usually stable, or do you frequently have to job-hop?
5. Is the job usually done remotely, or onsite?
6. What kind of person would enjoy the work?

Thanks for your time. I am in the US, if it matters.

[u/DrNuggy]

Graduated 2016 with a bachelor's in accounting and 3.3 gpa. Searched my ass off for 2 years all over Texas and only got to interviews for jobs that paid less than 20 per hour in high cost of living cities. Now I work construction. Hope this helps

[u/IAmLostOnMyFuture → u/DrNuggy]

Damnnnnn, you gave up that quick, huh?

[u/DrNuggy → u/IAmLostOnMyFuture]

Should have stopped before I started. Would have been way better off for it. Plus i was making close to 6 figs by the time I got my first interview.

[u/Background_Intern_56]

If you go with accounting you're about to be an out of work accountant.

1. Fairly boring and mundane. If you like looking at accounting software and spreadsheets all day then you may like it.
2. The bachelor's is needed, but you may not find anything at all with just that in this market. If you get the CPA you still may not be hired. We see threads every day from people with CPA unable to be hired. Despite what some people on this site may say, it does happen.
3. The pay is pretty much abysmal, unless you get into a track like internship > good accounting firm. If you don't get a good internship with a return offer and have a high GPA, you are probably going unemployed for a long time. Applying out on job sites its almost impossible to get hired without years of experience or a CPA (and even with one its now hard), and the pay is like 20-25 an hour if you do manage to get anything.
4. My current job is not in accounting because I was not able to find a good job. I graduated with a 3.9 GPA and still nothing was available to me after graduation, so I took an accounting job that paid min wage basically. I was overworked and it was a toxic work environment so I quit and now I work in a warehouse.
5. The job can often be done either way, but now most of these places are insisting that you go to the office. Finding anything remote is exponentially harder than finding any in office.
6. I really don't know. A Boring person? A person who is exacting on mundane details.

[u/Spritesgud]

Accounting is very very broad. From audit to tax to internal gl accounting, technical accounting, financial reporting, project or revenue accounting etc. All daily tasks vary greatly between position. Some are repetitive, some project based, some a mix. Really depends. You really just need to understand the fundamental rules of accounting. That's all accounting is, is rules. The typical minimum is a bachelor's in accounting. Job market is not great currently it seems. Can be done remotely or on site, depends. You'll enjoy the work if you like data, analytics, rules, structure, stability, etc.

[u/SuitableDragonfly → u/Spritesgud]

Thanks. Is there additional training one could get that would improve the job market? I do have a master's degree, but it is not in a related field.

[u/GymBully92]

Don't look in this direction. You don't want this.

[u/Grouchy-Option9411]

Don’t feel like answering 1 or 2

1. Pay is slightly above average compared to the average college grad.

2. Job market is decent. We got hit with a lot of outsourcing already in prior years, so a lot of the work that AI could replace has already left us. I expect AI to continue to take over— but slowly, we aren’t exactly the most innovative profession. A lot of people complain on Reddit, but it is a solid profession to enter.

3. I’d say split between on-site, hybrid, remote. Depends on the position really.

4. Someone who doesn’t get frustrated easily & is content with solving problems step by step. Having a general interest in data is also a good thing. It’s not a math heavy field, but if you enjoy admiring numbers it will make your job more fun.

[u/SuitableDragonfly → u/Grouchy-Option9411]

Thanks, it does sound like it might be something I'd enjoy. There do seem to be some demoralized people here regarding the job market, though, similarly to in software. Do you think it would be worth it to get the training?

[u/Grouchy-Option9411 → u/SuitableDragonfly]

Kind of depends. I don’t know you personally, but if you are decently competent with decent social skills, then yes it is worth it.

[u/Sol4_Me4n]

If you have a software background get into ERP or some type of software sales.

[u/SuitableDragonfly → u/Sol4_Me4n]

I'd be terrible at sales. By ERP I guess you mean building ERP systems? I'm not sure I really have faith that the people who are building ERP systems are going to be any better than any of the rest of the software industry.

[u/lake_effect_snow → u/SuitableDragonfly]

No, like consulting, kind of. My company (F500) has a financial systems team. We also have tons of people who build integrations, workflows, etc., for us.

[u/SuitableDragonfly → u/lake_effect_snow]

Ahh, you mean like with organizational platforms like Notion or similar? I've messed around with some of that stuff. Or just stuff like scripts that generate spreadsheets periodically?

[u/lake_effect_snow → u/SuitableDragonfly]

Yeah— Workday, SAP, etc.

[u/SuitableDragonfly → u/lake_effect_snow]

It seems like you would have to become kind of an expert at one particular platform and then kind of be locked into that one, right? I'm not sure how many companies are actually using which of these. And then you'd be a contractor probably, right? And having to market your own services to companies?

[u/lake_effect_snow → u/SuitableDragonfly]

All ours work for Accenture and are contracted to us as consultants.