Do you ever wish you had gotten an MBA ?
I'm currently an L4 engineer at Amazon India. I currently love and enjoy my work. However I've been thinking about my future as an engineer and I believe I might get bored of coding all my life. I would probably want to move into product management or leadership roles(VP 15-20 years from now) further down my path. However at this stage I cannot decide if I should be getting an MBA degree for this. My question to people who read this is, did you ever wish you had pursued an MBA? Has there been moments in your life when you feel that your professional growth has stagnated because you did not have a masters degree? A follow up question to any MBA grads reading this is, is it really worth getting a super expensive degree from the US if my long term plans are to settle down in India? A counter viewpoint - having started my career strongly with Amazon, can I expect to have a stronger growth than average if I put in the effort, and potentially get away with not doing an MBA? I'm 23 right now but I feel these decisions need to be made early so that I can prepare myself for what I want 10 years from now. I hate this and wish I could live more in the moment. TC : 20lpa YOE : 1.5
Not at all. I started the same day at Fluke as someone who is now a corporate VP at MSFT. Great article on the software side too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/05/29/do-i-need-an-mba-to-be-a-product-manager-in-tech/
Great article! Thanks. Sorry I did not get the analogy you made with the MSFT VP. Are you saying this person got to VP without an MBA? Also what's the timeframe we're taking here?
Here's my story .I have around 14 years of exp and worked in top 5 companies...now at this point i realized MBA is key to get into critical management role where people makes decisions without any knowledge ( this may not be true for all teams/companies) but at least it happened all time in my 14 years of careers . This year I started off my MBA from top 25 b school in US I'm hoping in 3 years I will get what I want
Hell no
Seen posts from people with MBAs here saying they would've been better off financially not getting it
Anecdotally, a slim majority of the VPs I’ve worked with have an MBA or Masters of some type, particularly in any PM or strategy focused role. But I also agree for the average Google engineer chances are it will most likely not be a positive ROI in the short term.
So are you saying there are a comparable number of people at VP level without this masters degree? Also, you think not a good ROI for a Google engineer is because they're already paid well?
Well it just depends on the role... I’ve worked with a ton of PM/Marketing/BD/Finance VPs who overwhelmingly have an MBA... Engineering leaders seem more like 50/50 at best to have masters... and sales VPs rarely have it. Just my non scientific observations. And yes ROI is based on the fact that you’re making good money now and likely won’t make any more in the short term post mba.
ROI on another degree if you're already at FAANG ? Thoughts on rising up the ladder via an MBA vs simply switching companies and taking the raise?
Atleast in the tech companies in the Bay Area - not worth it IMO. MBA will help you switch careers - open doors into management consulting; PE; VC; Finance etc - but that doesn’t seem to be your goal. The experience you gain from working at tech companies is usually hard to replace - especially if you are focused in eng space.
Thank you. I felt that too, just needed someone to confirm this thinking.
I know that MBA's are well regarded, even sought after in consulting and banking/finance but I don't think they are generally that necessary in tech. Especially if you are going to have to leave your job and not get a salary for 2 years...I doubt that any job you get after the MBA break will make up for all the $ you would have made. Not to mention the $ you will have to spend on the MBA itself
Thank you. This addresses a lot of my concerns
10+ yrs exp here. MBA is useless as long as you are planning to work in hard core tech companies. Quite often the best innovations and features come from engineers architects only. Being EM also doesnt need MBA. you will have no issues in your career in tech without that costly useless MBA degree. Non tech - yes, get an MBA. The one from an Ivy League, would take you very far.
Don’t generalize, it’s a must have for PM at amazon but might not be needed at google. Generally speaking PM or strategy benefit from ok it big time in the long run. engineers - not so much if they want to stay in engineering
If you want to be VP in American firms, you gotta move out to US. Irrespective of your MBA, success in corporate world comes from to be in a right place & at the right time.
Fair point, makes sense. Irrespective of location, can someone realistically grow to VP without a further degree?