What benefits will I have if I get a PhD in Distributed Systems (vs a MS CS with focus on Computer Systems) if I want to remain in the industry (no interest in going into academia)? Looks like only research areas that are hot today are ML/DS/AI related.
I received my PhD in early 2000s and I feel almost zero return on it except people from my 🐎 sh*t company calling me Dr. I concur with the previous commentor that it is great if you want to move to academia.
Do you like research, work on open-ended problem, and write papers? What interests you about distributed system? PhD is not for everyone...
PhD teaches certain kinds of skills to go deep in a problem space. You can learn that in industry as well but it is harder due to shorter time horizons
You shouldn’t get a PhD if you want to remain in the industry.