Ask HN: Should I do a CS masters at Cambridge or start as a new grad at Amazon?

I work at an AWS consulting firm and have worked with several employees in the AWS product and professional services team. Overall the general culture I've seen is for employees to get ahead by throwing others under the bus. I know I'm generalizing to all of AWS, but the work culture isn't the best in my opinion to be absorbed in.

I’d go with Cambridge for the experience alone. Letting this AI stuff shake out some more is also a bonus. Amazon could leave you laid off in 6 months. Once you get the masters, you have that for life, and a lot more options.

There will be corporations waiting to employ people the rest of your life. Going back to school later if you change your mind is a lot harder once you’ve started to build a life. Solidify that foundation now while it’s easy and you’re still in school mode.

> EDIT: It's very funny, I've asked the same thing on Reddit and over there 14 out of 15 comments advised me to take the job offer and here on HN the first 3 out of 3 comments tell me to do the masters

Which subreddit did you post on? Try one that's similar Hacker News like maybe programming and I think you'd get similar adobe as HN.

If your situation will allow you to, do the masters. A job at Amazon will always be there for you, but once you get a taste of industry it's hard to go back into academia. Looking back, I wish I'd done more schooling and taken more advantages of the opportunity available to me back then.

Flexibility and money are your long term goals, and the masters opens more doors to that than getting into industry today. What subfield would you be getting your masters in?

Do NOT work for Amazon!

If you had a different offer, I'd say consider it, but Amazon is VERY likely to leave you high and dry within 12 months. Never ever trust that company unless you are completely willing and able to land on your feet when they unceremoniously kick you to the curb tomorrow for no good reason other than some manager needed a scapegoat to make his numbers look good.

Do yourself a favor, stay out of the current mess of a market, stay away from Amazon, and take some extra time to learn more and become more employable.

Also, never trust Reddit. It's like 50% bots and trolls and 50% idiots who have no idea what they're talking about whatsoever but like to make themselves feel like they're smart by saying whatever dumb unfounded idea comes to their head. It's just as bad or worse than Twitter. Would you take advice from random people on Twitter?