CS PhD from Stanford/MIT/Harvard or Google swe?

New
codingrain

New

codingrain
Nov 7, 2020 60 Comments

Currently in Master's program at Stanford. Should I continue with Phd or go to google as a SWE? I have phd and swe offers.

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  • My biggest regret is wasting time in grad school. The opportunity cost is too high unless academia is your passion in life. Say you spend 5 years in phd (could be longer), that's at least half a million dollar in opportunity cost if not more.
    Nov 7, 2020 19
    • Google
      eliminated

      Go to company page Google

      eliminated
      ^Exactly what I am saying. Smart people do PhDs and smart people become L9. Also to note is that 20 years ago when all distinguished engineers studied smart folks didnt choose to work as soon as they do now as they didnt have that many options in industry. Now smart undergrads have way better options.

      At google for promotion it is never looked whether you had a PhD or not, especially in eng when it goes through callibration.
      Nov 7, 2020
    • New
      h7aSjc

      New

      h7aSjc
      u should be a distinguished engineer

      I'll vouch for you in promo packet
      Nov 7, 2020
  • PhD — that’s a rare opportunity especially at an institution like Stanford or MIT.

    I miss school.
    Nov 7, 2020 0
  • There are 100k of SWE at Google, there are only less than 100 PhD at Stanford (I make up the number but you get the idea). After 5 years of PhD you can start at L4, while you’ll start at L3 if you join now. Not a big short term loss, while it’s a big long term gain.
    Nov 7, 2020 6
    • When FB started building Libra/Novi, it brought a retired Stanford professor, David Dill, to lead the group, and brought in a bunch of PhDs to design the language for smart contract etc.
      Nov 7, 2020
    • Maybe there are a tiny portion of SWE work where PhD is useful but not for 99.9% of SWE. Esp if you consider the opportunity cost of losing 5 yoe.
      Many great tech were built by non-PhDs so one example doesn't mean a PhD is necessarily better than 5 yoe.
      Nov 7, 2020
  • If you really wanted to do a PhD, you wouldn’t be asking this question. Take the job offer and have some fun.
    Nov 7, 2020 0
  • Apple
    Kokomo33

    Go to company page Apple

    Kokomo33
    You can do heavy leetcoding at any time and land a job at Google. don’t be fool to compare an opportunity of doing PhD vs working for Google given you really want to do PhD
    Nov 7, 2020 0