Why I Gave CFA

Sep 17, 2026

I cleared CFA Level 1 this February. Before you get impressed, let me ruin it immediately: it will probably never help my career (or it might, but not on my current trajectory). I am a software engineer. Nobody is going to look at my resume, see “CFA” next to a Salesforce internal tool I built, and hand me a promotion. So naturally, the real question is not “how,” it is “why on earth.”

The honest answer is embarrassing, so let me build up to it slowly.

I joined my job last year. For the first few months it was fine, genuinely fine, new city, new team, new Slack channels to get lost in. But somewhere after the initial excitement wore off, I realized the remaining time after my 9-5 was just sitting there, empty, and boredom crept in. Here is the thing about me that I have only recently admitted out loud: when I get bored, I do not relax. I spiral. I need to be doing something I can call productive, or I start losing my mind a little.

And by productive, I do not mean it has to help my career. It just has to feel like a good use of my time.

By September, I was restless enough that I needed a project, any project, that would occupy the parts of my brain that a 9-5 job was leaving idle. Clearing a CFA level had always been sitting somewhere in the back of my head as a vague, someday, wouldn’t-that-be-cool kind of dream. It had nothing to do with my career path. I just liked the idea of having cleared it, the way people like the idea of having run a marathon without particularly enjoying mile 18.

And then I found out Salesforce reimburses the exam fee (if you actually clear it).

That was it. That was the tipping point. Not passion for financial markets, not a strategic five-year plan, just the discovery that my employer would pay for something that would keep me busy for the next six months. I got weirdly, disproportionately motivated. I registered almost immediately, before I could talk myself out of it, and then I was locked in.

What followed was, in fact, quite busy, and fun. Ethics readings, FRA, quant, portfolio management, all competing for the same evening hours that used to go to doomscrolling. It kept me occupied in exactly the way I needed. And in February, I cleared Level 1.

Here is the part I keep going back and forth on. Did I do this just to stay busy, or because I genuinely like solving problems? Honestly, both. The real reason I gave the CFA exam was to keep myself busy, but the nice surprise was the thrill. I love the feeling of cracking a tough problem, especially anything with maths in it, and that was exactly what I had been missing after work.

So that is the story. Not ambition, not a burning interest in finance, just a bored engineer, a reimbursement policy, and a soft spot for solving problems.

Would I do it again? Honestly, probably yes. I do a lot of things just for the love of the game.

Speaking of which, this website you are reading this on exists for the exact same reason. I got bored one weekend and needed something to call productive, so now I have a personal site instead of a personality.

Might get a startup idea if I keep doing this, lol.

Written by Khushvind Maurya