I’m 24 SDE @ Amazon India. L5. 3 YOE. From last couple of months I’m thinking lot about my career progression. I want to reach Director/VP level position later in my career (early 40’s) or own small scale tech company but sometimes I feel like being SDE won’t take me there. Also I see most of the VP’s within Amazon (outside as well) are from MBA ivy background or had 20+ YOE or with Amazon from its inception which sounds fair. Right now I’ve time and some money. So is it best to pursue MBA or pursue software engineering for long term goals. I’m thinking for Insead MBA. P.S. - I don’t want to work as an L5 SDM. #FAANG #MBA #faang #amazon #mba
I don’t think MBA will guarantee that you will reach VP level. If I were you, I would avoid it for now. At least work in the industry for few years and build some solid technical expertise. The way industry is moving, there will be a shift in white collar jobs (gen AI). The 2nd order effects are not clear yet. MBA is expensive and coupled with no income for the time you study. If I were you, I’ll continue this job for as long as I can
Actually that’s my concern, software development is moving too fast. SDE is relevant as long as he is updated with current trends and technology. IT is for 2000’s, Software & Cloud is for 2010’s and I think 2030’s is for AI( you can see the growth in last 6 months). I can’t keep up with the pace of technology.I don’t want to learn ANN, CNN & RNN now from scratch & join as fresher in other team or company . (My team does not have a scope for this) However, management seems as a relevant option for any decade to keep on top of it. And I think MBA helps to stay resilient in these changes. Also scope of SDE narrows down as you climb up the ladder.
It depends, a lot of MBA grads end up as PMs. Unless you go into Management Consulting. That is subject to change as well. AI is a big equalizer. In the sense that the high paying today might not be high paying going forward
MBA is for losers Invest the money to setup your own business and become ceo from day 1 if that’s the goal Don’t follow Indian crowd path
True. But most of these Losers(VP/SVP/CEO) are ruling us, as of now.
Nice sweeping statement to begin, then another suggestion which seems like getting candy from a baby, and then another suggestion. What a post 😂
MBA will help you transition from engineering to Management . But that you can achieve within Amazon as well without an MBA. Transition to product management ,show the impact and you can easily reach senior leadership positions. It's all about communication and impact , you can do that without MBA as well.
MBA from India is not worth it. Go for ivy league US if you can Crack it.
No one calls it FAAANG anymore. You mean the magnificent 7? You sound dated by using this term.
You can also look into alternatives like being an indie developer and putting your work in the public domain. Maybe create some content around your work. This might help you gain money + distribution for any future products/business opportunities. I feel these options are much better than investing in a traditional degree
MBA is not a way to VP, in fact you don’t need any degree to reach that level. Usually people do MBA if they want to break into consulting or investment banking and they do not have a degree from target schools. Or in some cases some firm will pay for their analysts to do MBA and it’s for quick promotion I think
You are asking this question on platform, where people says software engineering is the only world. MBA is most underrated here on this platform. For example, you work as SDE and next five years you would still be same. Keeping in touch with technologies Once you get into MBA, you can go different non technical levels as well. There are many things apart from SDE For example, investment bankers, economist, etc they make 7 figure just bonus. Of course they are the top. More higher levels you want to go, one should get closer with finance and people. Now , you can ask me about mark zuckerberg, where you can build product and develop etc and then CEO. Here it seems, you don’t want technical SDM nor working for your product. Fair enough, do mba and keep on eye on money which you have saved already
TBH this is the most sensible take I’ve found on this post. Maybe I’m little bias towards MBA, which also would be the reason. But, thanks for enlightening me.
Is the price of mba justified in your opinion? It is so expensive.
I’ll add that MBA and owning/starting a tech company are mostly unrelated. Doing an MBA won’t give you any leg up or skills in starting your own company. So think hard what you want because those 2 years are then better spent just starting a company and learning by doing. If you want to rise up the corporate ranks, yes MBAs are useful.
It won’t give you a leg up operationally, but it’s hugely meaningful for raising money. If you have an MBA from stanford or harvard, raising money for a startup is like taking candy from a baby
This is true.
SDE-2