I am fresh out of grad school (MS) and I am trying to know which career direction is better in the long run. I will be starting at an applied research job at FAANG company. I am at the beginning of my career and less interested in purely software development kind of jobs and more towards research oriented work or applied research work. As I see, there are the following options. How do these options stack against each other in terms of compensation, career growth, and your demand in the market? 1. Software developer - develop software and systems but not in any particular field. (100% software development) pros - you can work in any company and team, hence no shortage of jobs cons - you don't have your own field of expertise(like ML/OS/dist systems/etc) so not so much value?? 2. Applied researcher - use research to apply in your problems (50% research + 50% software development) pros - you can always switch to a more research-oriented job, your mixed skill set is rare to have, you can work both as sde and researcher. cons - you are bits and pieces kind(is it??) 3. Researcher - research and find new solutions to problems (70-80% research + 20-30% software development) pros - you are unique and skill set is rare, high in demand and thus highly paid cons - you can only work in specific teams and in your own field, generally require PhD
Depends if you have a passion in a particular field
I am passionate about a particular field, but I just wanted to know which profiles would be better. Maybe this will give me an idea if I need to push myself more towards research work
There are no better profiles. The one you’re passionate about the most is gonna push you to become so good that you’ll be well off.