Should i get my masters? It would be almost no cost? From a decent school. The thing is I am already making decent money so if i go to school i dont think it will help me any way financially. Does having a MAsters help ur income in the future?
It does have a cost. Opportunity cost!
Another one of these "is a masters worth it?" threads. What winds up happening is you get 2 types of canned responses: The first is the most common reply of "masters/MBA is worthless". The other canned response is "only if you want to do research or management". The most important factor in these type of responses is that they are generally from individuals that do not have graduate degrees. As someone that has an MS, I would suggest you consider going for it. As much as people hate to admit it, you do wind up seeing higher level roles (SDE 3, Principal, etc) that list graduate degrees as the preferred level of education. Sorry, but it's true.
I don’t think masters is useless but I think the opportunity cost isn’t worth the employers preference for it. There’s so much you can learn during the duration of masters like leetcode, systems design, relevant tech stacks, etc. These things seem more beneficial for your career. Of course if you ignore opportunity cost and compare two candidates that are identical only one has an advanced degree and the other doesn’t, the advanced degree candidate would be preferred. Reality is, people with advanced degrees have less practical experience than their counter parts of the same age.
Conversely, the OP can take the route I took of working and going to school at the same time. The only opportunity cost there is sacrificing your personal life. Then when you graduate you have your master's, work experience, and the practical experience you claim you don't get by going to grad school. It would be a mistake assuming leetcode is a replacement for an advanced degree. One day when the hiring committees see that successful leetcode interviews does not guarantee a better employee, less emphasis will be placed on leetcode all together.
Having a Masters automatically opens some doors that may otherwise be difficult to move through. Programmers can make great money without and with a Bachelor's degree. So once they are able to find a high paying job, they forget about more school.
It's another verifiable way to differentiate yourself from other candidates.
I have a master's. It's useless. At this point, previous work experience is way more important. However, if it's almost free, perhaps try to talk to your employer to do it part time and they can contribute the rest of the money. Then you can join our ranks without losing too much. (The ranks of useless degree holders)
Master’s in what?
Computer science. I think an MBA might be useful though, if you're looking for relevant roles, some might even require it. But for software engineer, most companies don't care, even if you have a PhD (Google is an exception, though the people who got better roles that I know were actually interns before so that might have helped)
Are you considering UW?
What school? How is it almost no cost to you?
Mid UC. By being a TA
I am seeing more and more roles require a Masters though. I saw a ML data engineer role in AWS require a masters as well as an analytics a manger at Facebook.
This proves my earlier point above that higher level roles (SDE 3, Principal, Engineering Manager, etc) are consistently listing master's as the preferred level of education.
Yes I’ve been seeing the same. Most ML roles that involve modeling seem to require a masters at a minimum
Good if you want to get into research and potentially a PHD. If you want to become an engineer again, not really
Agree. If you have a good career and you’re hood at your job, don’t waste money and time on a masters program