I’m turning 26. Thinking of a PhD in CS in a non-ML field (systems/networks/security). Assuming I can get into a top 10 school (not guaranteed, but I have a masters from a top 4 school in this field - may help). Primary drivers: 1. Personal growth: not working on small features, but big problems. Research is more fun than industry in general. These may be the sharpest years of my life - so better to do it now. Although I don’t want to go into academia. 2. Career growth: Increasingly I see very top level positions in technical leadership to have PhDs. I understand it’s not a requirement. 3. Entrepreneurship - obviously a PhD is not needed for this, but I see this increasingly as a trend in this domain. I think I’m more likely to engage in this in a PhD program than working on a visa in bay area at a large company 🙃 4. Immigration: PhD doesn’t guarantee immigration, but it can help, especially if I do it from a good place and do well. (because of my nationality, I have no realistic chance of getting a green card in my life time) — this is a minor reason, but it is there. Looking for some advice or constructive feedback from people who did and didn’t go down this path Potential cons I see are: 1. Lost tc short term 2. Mental health (PhD can be frustrating, uncertain) 3. Possible no impact on career - I already work this folks who have PhDs lol 4. Age: If start when I’m 27, I’ll be 32-33 when I finish.
The lost TC is more than just short term. 6 years of lost TC and promos and YOE is huge.
Phd experience is highly dependent on the advisor and funding scenario. I tried phd but had to drop out due to constant worry of funding and publishing research. I would recommend that you rather try to move to a company with good internal mobility. Google has great internal mobility and I am working on my area of interest with great TC. I already have Masters so I read research papers and join reading groups to keep my knowledge fresh. Also note that it is extremely competitive to get a job after phd in research domain or as research scientist.
Funny thing is I’m already working as a SWE in my relevant domain. I read papers, attending conferences already (though not as much as a PhD student).
I also went for a PhD later in life ( around your current age) and then did really well in the PhD. Afterwards joined Google as SWE. Here is my take on it: 1. Money/yoe/promo etc - you will lose a lot of time if you come back to SWE. If you go to research such as academia or research scientist positions, you will still lose time, but it wouldn’t feel that way because you couldn’t get there anyway without a PhD. But if you become a SWE after that, you will definitely feel the burn. Especially if you compare against people who are doing well, as they will be most likely younger than you and 1-2 levels higher. In established companies, no matter What you do you can’t catch up very quickly, and comparatively may never be able to catch up as some of them will keep growing as well. 2. Unless you go into a clearly marked research field/position, the only benefits of PhD are basically your meta level learnings. You will learn traits like resilience, independence, starting on a problem from first principles, critical thinking, creativity, ingenuity, technical writing, presenting and selling ideas. All these are assumptions based on a good PhD ( my PhD won university level award ). Now the catch is that you will see many people in industry have learnt the same but in much less time, like 1-2 years and now they are ahead of you 🤷♂️ But then some people got stuck in the industry and didn’t learn anything. So in short, PhD from a good school is very likely to teach you these very useful skills. But when you come out and join the industry, you will be behind many people who got the same skills in industry while also making money and getting promoted. But you will be ahead of people who got stuck or never developed these skills. It’s upto you if you see glass half full or glass half empty.
I have a PhD. You do a PhD because you want to do a PhD. You don't do a PhD for career growth. The only exception is if you need an advanced degree to immigrate.
Best reply right here...Personally I see PhD types as lazy and boring academics who can’t write production quality code. I would rather hire a talented coder without degree than PhD. Do PhD for other reasons IMO
Oracle : your company and user name checks out. Check andrej Karpathy and Richard sochers careers before you bust phds and academia. Also check Prabhakar raghavan. Although you seem like a low level engineer working in a Boring company. I don’t expect you to understand the value of good research.
I always wish I could go back to undergrad, major in CS, and join tech out of undergrad. I did a useless major and 6 years in a PhD at a top 5 in my field. Made it to FAANG, which worked out, but TC is still much lower than entry SWEs. Even if it wasn’t, I wish I had spent the last 6+ years in tech than a PhD. I missed out on all the income/equity, stock gains, promotions over that period. It’s fine, and I’m thrilled to be where I am today, especially over academia. Even though you’re thinking about a CS PhD, I still wouldn’t do it.
I mean it was useless in that I couldn’t get a good job with the BA. I’m at F doing research because of the PhD, not undergrad.
You have chosen the worst possible reasons to do a PhD. For immigration, a PhD won't "help" you. You need to have 200+ citations, best paper awards (yes, the bar is rising - I had an EB1 RFE with both of these things) and be known as a world class expert. The paper publishing rut will crush you and you have no idea how hard it is. Having a PhD will not make you attend more conferences. Also, only ML rules industry research. There is no "research" for non-ML fields. Even if there is, your growth will still be based on impact. Google doesn't give a damn if you can publish papers. Google is not a university, it is a business. You need impact and that has nothing to do with a PhD. To give you another data point, all PhD new grads join Facebook E4 with the title "Research Scientist" and non PhD grads are just SWE title but they do identical work. To be a part of FAIR or Google Research (to do actual research and not just be a swe), you need to be an ML person and have a profile good enough to be a TT professor. If you don't want to go into academia (not even have an ambition to), PhD is the worst thing to do. You really need to introspect hard why you want a PhD.
Agree with most of your points. But probably you are understating the value of independent thinking and being able to construct something from first principles. Not everyone gets there. I know because I didn’t think like that until I did my PhD. But yeah, in general you are right. ML phds are valued more and you need very strong accolades to have an impact on your immigration.
I agree critical thinking skills are now much better. But is it worth 6 years? I am not so sure man/lady.
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