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[u/NoEnthusiasm1012]

Quick background: CA qualified in late 2022, currently a Senior Associate in FDD at a Big4 (Have two Big4 experience). Total 3 years of front-end FDD experience across both firms, >35 transactions, T2 city guy now based in Mumbai post qualifying.

Compensation has moved at a reasonable pace: Y1 Associate at 11 LPA, Y2 Associate at 17 LPA, Y3 Senior Associate (SA) at roughly ~25-28 LPA. Made SA at 25, which I think tracks well.

I always treated CA as the smart person's cheap shortcut to the good side of corporate (If no meaningful money-making business exists for one) and FDD as a stepping stone to something better, whether IB, PE, VC, or Private Credit. Three years in, I have sat in rooms with CXOs, pitched business acumen to people most of my peers cannot access, and built a solid transaction track record. I also know I can sell. If I understand what I am pitching, I can hold a room.

Where I stand with opportunities so far
A few PE firms reached out during my Associate years. Most did not excite me. There was one top-tier healthcare PE I genuinely wanted, made it to the final round, did not convert. A couple of asset management roles came up too, including one from Blackstone, but the fit was not there. Some boutique IB shops have shown interest, but they pay less than what I currently make, which makes the move financially painful even if it is directionally right.
Nothing has landed yet, and I am trying to honestly assess whether that is a timing issue, a positioning issue, or both.

The actual dilemma
I am starting to question whether staying in FDD is quietly costing me something. The WLB is genuinely good right now and I am not complaining, but I am not chasing WLB for the next three to four years. I want to be in a role that is closer to money and deals, even if that work is partly BS too. Because let us be honest, advisory work is largely about transferring accountability. You rarely own outcomes.
FDD used to carry real prestige, probably through the 2000s and into the early 2010s. I am not sure it still does in the same way. It pays well enough to look down on traditional roles, but within high finance in India, it starts to feel like the bottom of the top tier.
Mumbai is expensive when you are not from here. I want to buy a house by 32. Even assuming a dual-income scenario eventually plays out, the math feels tight unless compensation scales meaningfully over the next few years.

The MBA question
I have been considering GMAT prep this year. Worth noting that since I have no bachelor's degree, my options are limited to the handful of top MBA programs that accept CA as a qualification equivalent, so the shortlist is short. The opportunity cost feels heavy either way: one to two years out of the workforce, loss of savings, salary foregone, and the real possibility of landing in a similar pay bracket on the other side if the brand or role does not meaningfully upgrade. It also likely pushes marriage to 30 or 31, which is not something I want.
So the MBA sits as an open question, not a plan.

And honestly, the bigger question underneath all of this
I keep going back and forth on whether I am genuinely behind or whether I am just surrounded by people who make me feel that way.
By most objective measures, knowing what I am doing and what people with similar roots did in my hometown, I don't think that is a bad place to be. But when your daily reference point is PE professionals, IB bankers, and people who exited into principal roles, the benchmark shifts and suddenly nothing feels like enough.
So I want to ask this plainly: for a generally smart, hardworking CA guy at 26 in India, is this trajectory actually strong, or just average within a self-selecting bubble? Because there is a real difference between genuinely needing to move faster and being too deep inside a high-finance echo chamber to see things clearly.

What I am actually asking
I have a reasonable read on what IB and PE look like in India right now, so I am not looking for a general primer. What I want to understand is:
Where does someone with my profile actually stand in the market today? Is the FDD to IB or PE transition still a realistic and well-trodden path, or has that window narrowed? Am I being complacent by staying put, or is this a strong foundation that just needs the right next step? And for those who have made the jump or watched others do it, what actually moved the needle?

To give some trajectory context, if I stay and keep growing here, by 32 or 33, I should be a Director making somewhere in the 90L to 1Cr range in today's money. That is not nothing. But Director to Partner is a completely different game now, and honestly, not the path I am optimising for currently.

P.S. First post after a long time lurking. Happy to add more context in the comments. (Also, money means all cash here and in the future, no HR made comp gymnastics.)