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

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

#41

Post by fuzztester » Fri, Sep 13, 2024, 1:25 AM UTC

ggorlen wrote: post #20

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…

> 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…

>OMSCS.

From the Georgia Tech online course?

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

#42

Post by jen729w » Fri, Sep 13, 2024, 1:33 AM UTC

jaaron wrote: post #28

deeptechdreamer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Everything swatcoder suggested in his comment is good. I just want to add/emphasize: If you don't actively stay up with the tech, your understanding will atrophy. Consequently, because you intend to remain a PM, your tech will never be as strong as someone who is dedicated to it and you need to be okay with that. Another classic example for this are engineering managers: people management (like project/product manage…

> If you don't actively stay up with the tech, your understanding will atrophy

Ex-tech turned PM here. This is totally accurate. But as you say, don’t be discouraged. When I was a tech, if my PM had taken the time to learn anything I would have been ecstatic.

My advice: learn at home. Set up some VMs and watch some YouTube. Install some things. Whatever field you’re in, install it. Play with it. Honestly that’ll put you well above your peers.

Other excellent advice in this thread re: going to meetups, conferences etc. Just absorb stuff. It takes a while but it’ll sink in.

I mean, just knowing what half the terms mean is half the battle...

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

#43

Post by ghaff » Fri, Sep 13, 2024, 1:59 AM UTC

swatcoder wrote: post #23

deeptechdreamer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Some options: * Depending on your industry and its maturity, there may be courework or certification tracks designed for managers, etc (still expensive, but better focused) * Regularly attend technical conferences in your industry. Sit for sessions and presentations on those deeper topics, work hard to understand them, make a point to follow up on what you're exposed to, make connections with people who can amplify y…

Yeah I think there’s a lot you can do that doesn’t involve the cost and rigidity of a degree program unless there’s some reason to do so. And the company is willing to cover it for whatever reason.

ADDED: I did go back to school for an MBA and used it to somewhat change careers. But degrees from good schools were less expensive at the time, I had sort of planned to do so, the degree was more of a gate for certain roles, I enjoyed it, and as I say it was a good way to transition into the computer industry which might otherwise have been hard.

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

#44

Post by germinalphrase » Fri, Sep 13, 2024, 2:05 AM UTC

jaaron wrote: post #28

deeptechdreamer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Everything swatcoder suggested in his comment is good. I just want to add/emphasize: If you don't actively stay up with the tech, your understanding will atrophy. Consequently, because you intend to remain a PM, your tech will never be as strong as someone who is dedicated to it and you need to be okay with that. Another classic example for this are engineering managers: people management (like project/product manage…

“ people management (like project/product management) is its own discipline with a deep set of skills, research, training, etc.”

What reading or other recommendations do you have here?

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

#45

Post by musicale » Fri, Sep 13, 2024, 2:54 AM UTC

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

This looks like a winner to me as well. Personally I find university courses to be motivating, and unlike other programs this doesn't seem to be designed to rip you off or put you in debt. You learn the same good material as on-campus students, and you get an MS out of it from a good engineering school. The credential is meaningful because it requires completion of courses that are difficult but also designed to teach you the material.

If you have no engineering background, I expect you'd need to spend time doing prerequisite/undergrad courses beforehand.

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

#46

Post by shepherdjerred » Fri, Sep 13, 2024, 3:23 AM UTC

ggorlen wrote: post #36

Jtsummers wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

Wow, I thought I was masochistic. What possessed you to take DC and GA (two of the hardest classes) together?

I took DC alone and found it manageable if you weren't a perfectionist. Compilers was the most difficult thing I've ever done, though that was mostly due to my own poor time management during phase 3 (generating the intermediate representation). I didn't complete phase 3, so most of my time during phase 4 (emitting MIPS assembly + implementing three register allocation algorithms + optimizations) was catching up.

Also, as a note, the very difficult classes like distributed computing and compilers are completely optional (though well worth it IMO). The only very difficult class that's required is graduate algorithms.

For those not familiar with OMSCS, there are some class ratings here: https://www.omscentral.com/

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

#47

Post by 1jreuben1 » Fri, Sep 13, 2024, 4:49 AM UTC

Learning is always worth it, but you dont need to pay for a 2nd certification for that. Disclaimer - I did an MSc in Bioinformatics 20 years ago. I've been working in the software industry for 30 years. I contemplated doing a PhD, but up until now, there has just been multiple firehoses of free information online to absorb (plus many good books).

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

#48

Post by senjindarashiva » Fri, Sep 13, 2024, 7:30 AM UTC

I am assuming your in a country where you have to pay for university courses? If not I've personally found that it's an interesting and worthwhile complement to development work. Working as a developer and taking some courses in areas where I feel that theoretical knowledge is beneficial while slowly working towards a masters. From a career standpoint I don't think the degree while help that much however the deeper knowledge might. But again this is under the assumption that the education is free.

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

#49

Post by austin-cheney » Fri, Sep 13, 2024, 8:51 AM UTC

A masters degree is excellent for gaining opportunities doing more interesting work, but otherwise is an extremely expensive way to enter tech.

I am a mid-40s developer without a masters, but have a former military and cyber defense background. Most of my programming experience is in JavaScript, which is super low barrier to entry and generally stacked with beginners and beginner experts that never get past entry level capabilities. At this point in my career, in this line of work in JavaScript, I have to make hard choices:

1. Make good money working with people that cannot really program but nonetheless consider themselves engineers with hyper insecurity because they are reliant upon a massive tech stack

2. Make less money working with more mature people doing different work

With that as my options I have to make some hard decisions about if I even want to advance

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

#50

Post by badpun » Fri, Sep 13, 2024, 10:26 AM UTC

99% chance you’re just bored in your career. You’ll probably be as bored in your new career, as most of work in any field is just a boring grind. It’s best to alleviate boredom without severely compromising one’s earning potential.