I’ve done my undergrad in CS and have a years experience of being a data analyst at EY. I’ll start my masters program at CMU MISM program this August where I can take courses from the CS department. I’m passionate about the data science domain but from my research on LinkedIn I’ve seen that majority of the DS at FAANG have PhDs. My question is while at CMU should I focus on DS subjects or SWE ( has a higher TC , better job stability(H1B), no phd or 3-4 yoe required to enter the field ) ? I’m good at coding but I like using analytics to solve a business problem.
Try and find a job that combines the two, something like a software engineer who builds platforms for data scientists. It allows you to work with data scientists and possibly solve some of their problems, but easier to be hired as a SWE. And then you can go from their.
This is why a lot of data engineers join FB then transfer to SWE