Master’s Degree or No (stick with me here)
I’m currently in a systems engineering role and would like to eventually be a tech entrepreneur. I studied computer engineering and was more focused on hardware my university, leaving me with a lack of confidence in CS skills and ability. I’ve been to final round SWE interviews with Facebook and Amazon but rejected in the phone screen by MSFT and Google. Please note, this was without taking Algos in school and on less than 20 practice coding problems. I want to be a tech entrepreneur and need to find the job that will provide me with the most translatable skills to being an entrepreneur, until I find the right business idea. My job at Intel provides almost no translatable skills to this goal. I see the best roles for this as a SWE or a PM role, hopefully related to AI, as there is a lot of opportunity for new products in that space. I was accepted into a top 20, “cash cow” MS in CS program and need to decide very soon if I’m going to go. It’s expensive, yes, but I have money and really want to be spending my full-time attention developing skills that will or could be translatable to developing my own product. I could reapply and probably get into a better school, because I have the grades and GRE to get in anywhere and improved letter’s of recommendation this go around. I could also quit my job, spend a couple months on leetcode and land a pure SWE gig. Thoughts on go versus no go?
Have been an EM at FAANG and unicorn companies for past 10 years. We give zero fucks about your masters degree. Invest the time in leetcoding (which is stupid but it’s the way the industry works) and work on your interviewing soft skills.
This.
Education is great but if you really want to be an entrepreneur I get the impression that spending your savings on your first business will probably teach you more than spending that same cash on a degree
Just LC. MS won’t bridge the gap of non CS focused BS.
I was 3-4 classes away from having a CS degree in undergrad—you don’t think 8 graduate level classes would accelerate my skills beyond a BS?
If you already took some CS courses while doing CE then it might be possible. Useful undergrad courses: 1.OS 2.Databases 3.Computer Networks 4.Machine Learning 5.Algorithms 6. Data Structures 7. Compilers 8. Theory of Computation (Automata theory) 9. Software Engineering 10. System Analysis and Design 11. Stats 12. Probability for CS 13: Pattern Recognition 14. Computer Graphics 15. Discrete Math 16. Computer Architecture 17. Digital System Design Also, it depends on your goal. Since you’re already working and fully focused on practical aspects it might not be necessary to get all the courses. Also, it depends on how satisfied you’ll be at the understanding level. For example, with 11-13 background you’ll get much better understanding of machine learning. Without 3, I’ve seen some people working in FAANG. But it limits your design insights or clarity. At your startup you might be able to rely on others for such things though. Practical experience might be decent substitute for 9-10. I assume you already have had 16-17 from CE. In the end, I’ve seen many people are coasting & getting things done without such breadth.
If you get your company to pay for it
My 2 cents: 1) Only go back to studying if you either drastically changing fields or if there’s a recession coming and you couldn’t find jobs. If you want to work on your idea, not working and not studying is better than studying. 2) Entrepreneurship works the other way around. You don’t wait for an idea or transition to it. You decide to do something and you go for it with people that share your vision and have skills you don’t. That also means you need skills to accomplish what you want to do, so focus on that. What skills will you need to make a company successful? 3) If you want to be the tech cofounder, be good at tech. Spend the next months reading, leetcoding, interviewing until you get a job at a tech company. Look for the ones that help you with your skills and are already established. That’s where you learn tech and best practices. 4) If you wanna PM, ask around on becoming a PM. You’ll find a lot of them go through a path where they work for a year or two and something a bit more different (with a cs degree maybe bizops, bizdev, ba) and then get an MBA. Everything else is a waste of time. Don’t wait for a deus ex machina idea for something, you need to be actively trying and that takes time and effort.
Are you on H1B? How old are you? If citizen or green card, most blinders will tell you to forgo the MS and just Leetcode your way in, but I think it could still make sense provided the cost isn't super high - why not UIUC MCS or Gatech OMSCS part time? If on H1B then you'd probably need the MSCS degree if you want to avoid these RFE situations. Saw in another thread, oh you got into USC. How much is tuition now?
23 years old, American citizen. Tuition is ~70k for the 1.5 years I’d be doing it. The more significant factor is the salary opportunity cost.
True, but you aren't giving up too much early on your career. On the flip side, MS degrees are getting diluted by H1B and unis using them as a cash cow for foreign students. Old HW tech companies like Intel and Cisco still sort of value MS, but perhaps it's because so many H1Bs have them. It just gives HR a checkbox to mark that they can't underpay you even more as a BS. The leetcode bar is more important at the FANG type SW companies. A long time ago (way before I ended up in Intel in recent years), one of my friends got into Intel as a RCG. He realized that it paid crappily for tech companies even then. So he used Intel's tuition assistance to pay for his Stanford MS. Pretty much right after he got the MS, he left to MBB consulting. Then leveraging MBB he got into HBS. Back to MBB right after HBS, but then left go into SW PM at a FANG level company. Now a director at a unicorn.