Which is better, working at a hedge fund or Ibank in trade operations?

That depends on the nature of your job.

If it isn’t about the money or the power, you be in the wrong line of work, dude.

Generically speaking, you are hired/paid for how you use your brain, not a specific skill set. Every organization is different — with SOPs and technology to learn. True even within operations — statistical arbitrage, for example — that are theoretically the same throughout the industry. In practice, they never are. Unless you are rather young or in a very small operation, you should have seen this even within your own bank.

Big picture — switching is a good thing. Two types: the specialists and the generalists. I am a generalist — they intentionally move into areas where their current skill sets do not translate very well to the new job, challenging them to learn and grow in the breadth of their knowledge and abilities. The goal is to come out on top as a “jack of all trades” (technical) or “Renaissance men” (management). Specialists move to areas where they do not have “enough” or “deep” skills to get the new job done on day one…challenging a different kind of learning and growth. The goal is usually to create something entirely their own (technical) or be “the” expert in some very specific area (management).

The key to any “good” move is whether or not you are really excited about the move as they offer you the job and even more juiced up about it 60, 90 days into it. Life is change. If you are actively pursuing it AND new organizations are hiring you (paying you) to do it, you are making good choices.