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Ask HN: Is a Masters in CS/Engineering worth it for a mid-career PM?

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Re: Ask HN: Is a Masters in CS/Engineering worth it for a mid-career PM?

#31

Post by alienchow »

To be honest not really. For mid career pivots, your work on your resume counts more than a degree. You'd see more success transitioning organically by helping out with simple technical projects on the team and filling knowledge gaps with YouTube. Formal courses fill you with information that gets forgotten without practical application.

PMs with engineering knowledge are actually very valuable. I love cross-functional team members, since they always provide new perspectives. So I wouldn't call it a pivot either, more like a career boost. You'd need to have a supportive engineering team who'd be willing to let you get your hands dirty though, that'd be your bigger challenge.

Re: Ask HN: Is a Masters in CS/Engineering worth it for a mid-career PM?

#32

Post by moandcompany »

deeptechdreamer wrote: post #15
swatcoder wrote: post #9

Consider that taking 5-10 graduate courses and writing a master's level thesis or project will generally take all of your free time and a bunch of your savings over the course of two or more years. (I sure hope you're not thinking to take on debt for this!) And while you'll absolutely learn some things and find yourself excited about some ideas in those couple years, you will forget almost all of the stuff your learn…

Yes, I want to be a PM with deep technical understanding. What are the other more efficient paths?

Software Engineering in practice versus the curriculum in most Computer Science programs, undergraduate or graduate level tend to be very different.

If you want to become more effective as a PM through sharing a technical understanding, it would probably be better to gain first-hand experience of what teams are practicing -- That would provide a better understanding and empathy for what they have to deal with.

Re: Ask HN: Is a Masters in CS/Engineering worth it for a mid-career PM?

#33

Post by jsqu99 »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #11

Take a look at the OMSCS. Great degree, very cheap, and you can do it while you work. https://omscs.gatech.edu/ Happy to chat about my experience with the program, feel free to email me: hn@sjer.red

I'm in my 4th week of my first class. I'm 54. I have a CS undergrad from 1996. I too caught the ML bug and...this first class is kicking my butt but I'm LOVING the experience. Quality education, very inexpensive, and I can quit any time. I'm doing it for the love of learning and don't need to do it. It takes $100 to apply. Just go for it and try a class. I will warn you without a tech background this particular program will be tough I think. I'm struggling catching up w/ Math

Re: Ask HN: Is a Masters in CS/Engineering worth it for a mid-career PM?

#34

Post by jsqu99 »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #16

Careful about aging out. At your age you have about 10 years before age discrimination will hit you hard at the individual contributor level if you haven’t moved into management. Maybe a dual master program to obtain the MS in computer science and an MBA simultaneously? That way you show deep knowledge of business and the technology.

Serious question...where is this happening? I've been a job-hopper all my life. I'm 54, and i've never felt i was being discriminated against. I keep hearing about agism...is it more in SV? I'm in south carolina

Re: Ask HN: Is a Masters in CS/Engineering worth it for a mid-career PM?

#36

Post by ggorlen »

Jtsummers wrote: post #30
ggorlen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consider that taking 5-10 graduate courses and writing a master's level thesis or project will generally take all of your free time and a bunch of your savings over the course of two or more years. (I sure hope you're not thinking to take on debt for this!) OMSCS graduate. The program certainly ate up most of my free time for 2.5 years, but on the other hand, the whole degree was about $8k for me and required no th…

It's the same now. You can still take two hard/challenging courses together if you plan it right, though. Some courses release all the projects at the start of the semester so they're more self-paced, pair that with courses on a more rigid schedule that release one project at a time. If you stay ahead in the one class, then it's not much different than taking one at a time.

Good to know. https://www.omscentral.com/ and talking to other students helped a great deal with planning.

Two difficult classes I took together were Embedded Systems Optimization and Compilers, both taught by the same instructor and with similar concepts, so working on one helped solidify concepts in the other.

On the other hand, I took Distributed Computing during its first offering alongside Graduate Algorithms and was super overwhelmed.

Re: Ask HN: Is a Masters in CS/Engineering worth it for a mid-career PM?

#37

Post by ghaff »

I'm not sure that, absent some serious credentialism, getting a degree makes a lot of sense past some point. Certifications, attending conferences, etc, may well and they're a lot cheaper, companies will probably be happy to pay for them, and they are probably mostly not time out of your pocket.

If a company wants to pay for an executive MBA program or something along those lines, sure why not?, but certainly wouldn't do it on my own.

Re: Ask HN: Is a Masters in CS/Engineering worth it for a mid-career PM?

#38

Post by tptacek »

29 years into my career. I have 1 semester of undergrad at UIC. Hasn't mattered a bit. The opportunity cost of a midcareer masters is high. If you're not already in tech, the degree might serve as a forcing function and do some matchmaking for entry-level jobs, but my guess is you could have hustled and gotten those same opportunities without it.

I have two kids who occasionally think about how they'd pivot from their undergrad degrees into tech work (probably after seeing me waking at at 11AM and working all day in my pajamas). I would steer them away from an MSCS.

Re: Ask HN: Is a Masters in CS/Engineering worth it for a mid-career PM?

#39

Post by pinkmuffinere »

The advice in here is broadly "no", but I think that is because you specifically called out CS. I think you should probably narrow that list of fields a bit more, because for some fields you would have no choice -- eg, if you wanted to do GNC (guidance navigation and control) in aerospace I think you'd _have_ to go back to school, because so much of the fundamental math is not something you could learn on-the-job.
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