is getting a PhD in computer science beneficial to a software engineer?
This is my personal opinion on this:
First of all, I have a bachelor degree in computer science and not a PhD.
I don't know if you can really have a PhD in computer science. Like a PhD in computer science learning what?
I have also heard that to be a machine learning scientist for some tech companies, PhD is required.
For a software engineer, I don't think you need a PhD. Probably, that will take too much of your time.
The software field is consistently improving and you might be left behind while persuing your PhD. On less you are eyeing a role in some company, and that role requires that qualification.
This is just my opinion, what do you guys think?
Hi, @Beta_one. I have PhD from AI and I see no benefits. I was working for multiple companies that are doing AI research and nobody was asking if I have a PhD or no. In my point of view if you love computer science go for it but not because of companies. It will give you more information about how things works and time to think about what you want to do in your live or for your side project :)
I'm considering getting a PhD, I don't expect that I'll make any more money, but after 10+ years in software building the same web / mobile systems has a shelf life for how interesting it is. I see some of stuff coming out of AI on the YouTube channel 2-minute Papers, and it seems like the revolutionary work is being done by PhD's. The interesting work is in research - solving the hard science and engineering problems.
So what I've concluded is that a PhD probably is not going to net you more money, but what you work on with a PhD is significantly different from standard software engineering that us with B.S. in Computer Science do.
The further up the academic pole you go the more narrow focussed your degree becomes.
Bsc Computer Science - 3 year course that is a taster of everything.
Msc Computer Science - 1 or 2 year course that is in slightly more detail but usually a conversion course unless you take something like Msc in AI or computer vision etc. Finishes with a major project focussed on one very specific area like Multi-agent systems for parking allocation (mine).
PhD - Usually around 4 years of very focussed research on a particular problem domain that could be out of date by the time it comes to completion of the research.
TLDR; PhD does bring with it transferable skills, like all degrees, but very rarely is it needed for jobs. You'll just become an expert in some very niche aspect of computer science.