Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Advanced Degrees for Software Developers?

Posted by Cliff on from the more-school-or-more-experience dept.

DagnyJ asks: "I am an Undergraduate planning to pursue a Graduate Degree in Software Engineering and Design. The question is whether to get a Ph.D. or a masters degree. When pursuing a career in this industry, is a Ph.D. going to make much of a difference in opportunities over a Master's degree, or would it be better to get out of school fast and get some real experience?" It's an ever popular question for college undergrads in their senior year. With the change in economic climate, maybe staying in school for a few more years might not be a bad idea.

1 of 27 comments (clear)

  1. Pros and cons of a Ph.D. by geophile · · Score: 4
    I have a comp sci Ph.D. and 13 years of experience building software products, so I know what I'm talking about on this topic from both sides: trying to escape academe, and interviewing job candidates in the same position.

    An advanced degree is an indulgence if you want to work as a software engineer. Do it if you want to, but don't expect it to improve your salary. The only thing that counts is years "in the real world", i.e. writing code for a customer or product. I mean that literally. If someone is trying to hire a software engineer with five years of experience, then six years in grad school and one year of experience will usually not get past a screening of the resume.

    A Ph.D. can actually be a hindrance. If you get one, many potential employers will view you with suspicion for a number of reasons. The attitudes I've seen are that if you have a Ph.D. you must:

    • think you're too good to write code, fix bugs, write release notes, etc.
    • be lousy at writing code.
    • be incapable of writing efficient code.
    • be more concerned with cool ideas and theory than shipping a product.
    • have outrageous salary demands.
    • have a problem dealing with holders of mere B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees.
    I have never seen these sorts of concerns applied to candidates with an M.Sc. degree.

    I'm definitely not saying that you shouldn't get an advanced degree. I really enjoyed it, and I think the quality of my work (including code) greatly benefits from my education. My point is that potential employers may not see it this way.

    I'm also not saying that you should go get a programming job right out of high school. Learning the basics of complexity theory, data structures and algorithms, compilers, databases, numerical analysis -- typical undergraduate courses -- is really important if you're going to be a serious software engineer.