Should I Accept a Job I Don't Want?

Dear Evil HR Lady,

Do I stand any chance working a different job than the one I was offered and accepted? I interviewed for a position at a prestigious financial firm in a dream location with great people and did exceptionally well. I’m expecting an offer soon.

The bad news? The position is a software engineering role. And I hate software engineering. Hence my dilemma. Unfortunately, I’m a good programmer and it’s what I’ve been doing for 10 years. It’s not that hard for me to get offers. The problem is I’m burnt out: I can no longer stand doing the coding part of the job anymore. I desperately need more people-oriented work, for my own sanity. But I don’t have the financial luxury of taking the time to go to business school.

This firm is small, but growing quickly. There will be many new positions soon. Once employed, do you see any chance of working my way into one of these positions sooner rather than years down the road? I feel like I could only stand programming again for 6 months at most. What I’d like to do is somehow work my way into a different division that can still make use of my technical skills, such as business analysis, operations, sales, etc.

If I make myself well-liked and indispensable in the original role, would it be crazy to inquire, subtly, about a new (but related) role as soon as possible? I believe I could make my case if they were receptive to it. But if I let the cat out of the bag that I’m not satisfied with my current role, are they going to be disappointed and fire me? I feel like I may never come across such a great company any time soon.

Should I Accept a Job I Don't Want?