Steve on Warpcast

Steve pfp

As a developer I feel my career advancement stagnating in its current trajectory. This feels silly to ask, but is there merit to obtaining a masters degree as a software/design engineer to get to staff level one day? My gut says experience and street cred matter way more but I'm curious what others think of the ROI.

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Dan Romero pfp

work experience >>>>>>>>

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alex pfp

@alexgrover.eth

You may have seen this but https://staffeng.com or the book of the same name worth looking at In my experience (primarily recruiting at smaller startups so take with a grain of salt) the MS doesn’t add much, unless you have a specific area of research you want to study that’s applicable to the specific role you’re applying for.

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jtgi pfp

Never seen that as a factor at bay area type companies. I've seen it as a counter indicator in some hiring loops: "this is probably someone who draws diagrams instead of actually getting shit done...get good signal on that" The staff engineers I know are either deeply technical in some domain or able to lead large technical efforts across multiple teams. And often both. They also often have a solid understanding of how the business works (p&l, opex, etc).

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pfp

by staff level do you mean like a permanent dev job in a single company, wdym

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Panda 🐼 pfp

Masters matter less as boomers and gen-x are aging out of management. I’m honestly wary of people with them these days because they have sucked in comparison to people without but experienced.

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Zach pfp

Potentially dumb question but what's the desired endpoint or attributes of that endpoint that you're imagining? Managing many people? CTO at a Series B+?

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Hogan Prison no 619 pfp

Hogan Prison no 619

@hoganthereformed

As a dropout and quite a successful one , I don’t think you need it depending on situation. Do you work for a company or yourself ? Will you want to do either or in the future ? I think it could help but it’s not necessary imo

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Sam (crazy candle person) ✦ pfp

Sam (crazy candle person) ✦

i was a tech recruiter before and i hired a lot of founding engineers, usually they had 10-20 years of exp. if you're trying to move up internally to a staff position and that's one of the requirements (and you want to do that), you can but your instinct is right, street cred is more important. i'd rather see a github full of significant OSS contributions, that you've written an oreilly textbook etc. don't think skewl really matters that much for devs

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Carlos Matallín pfp

Carlos Matallín

I feel that you and I’m on a similar path/trajectory. I’ve considered it too, but in my opinion, it’s not worth it just for the credentials—unless you’re after the intellectual challenge or need it for visa requirements. Happy to talk anytime.

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HH pfp

Gonna page @dwr.eth on what he thinks is the best/fastest way of making it to staff level.

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Maretus pfp

My gut and life experience tells me that the degree won't be as big of a selling point as your previous history and examples of your work.

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JB Rubinovitz ⌐◨-◨ pfp

JB Rubinovitz ⌐◨-◨

I have a masters degree in ML and it was useful at the time of the last deep learning cycle to get to spend a lot of time thinking about ML/AI when other people weren’t. Besides the Ivy League pedigree it wasn’t really helpful as a credential. I still recommend AI phds if you can excel at it and want to do AI research full time. Re design Eng maybe talk to CMU HCI grads? Seems like most prestigious program.

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slobo pfp

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Brad Barrish pfp

Work experience FOR SURE.

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Dalton pfp

Would advise against getting a degree and instead seeking out a staff dev in the role you envision for yourself and who is willing to mentor you. You also need to be at a company with staff level project opportunities, which not all have.

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Dreamin pfp

In crypto I think street cred is easily obtainable compared to a degree and opens more doors for you (assuming the person is motivated). Who would you work with, someone that has a degree or someone that did stuff you find valuable ?

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behkod pfp

Masters on its own is only a waste of time. IMHO, you should jump into industry right after bachelor (if not during). Or if you're not an indi researcher, you should follow to phd & postdoc to continue as an organization backed researcher. THERE IS NOTHING NEW IN MASTER. Esp w/ what we see nowadays & what one can foresee on the horizon, knowledge is accessible to everyone w/ a normal internet connection. So, I believe better not to waste time in academies/universities.

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Sponstar pfp

We've been hiring developers for a decade, and never have I ever even asked where they went to school. As long as they can code creatively and have experience, that's your masters.

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Archilles ༄ pfp

To be honest, even if you get the masters’s degree you’d still need the experience and street cred to along the way I personally feel nowadays it’s not about educational qualifications anymore, it’s about what you’re really capable of doing And the quality of your services

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