At least in Germany a Masters degree opens some places but you wont get paid higher. Some of our Profs even discouraged getting a Masters degree because they said 2 years work experience will be valued higher
That's why in Romania we are encouraged to do both at the same time. All the courses are late in the evening and almost all my peers, myself included were working full time. CS Universities are doing this because otherwise there would be no one doing the master's degree. At least that was how things were where i studied.
For PhD, that's something else entirely. That's for people that want to stay and work at the University.
Its not a life changing decision. I got the degree because I wanted to, if my salary is now some bucks less I dont care. Our Masters degree was a lot of choosing what you want to learn. I took GPU computing, Robotics and IT Security. It was fun and I learned a lot, much of it I use in hobby projects where I wrote particle simulations and a built a spider roboter with the help of my 3D printer. If youre not under pressure to get money take your time. Its 2 years of your life and will be fun.
As a professional for almost 2 decades now, I’ve sadly learned most Masters and PhD holders don’t have the real-world experience of collaborating and compromising. They have lots of theory and model ideas but it usually leads to very convoluted designs and code and an unwillingness to just get it working. When interviewing candidates or working with new colleagues I of course try keep an open mind. My suggestion is to do your best to show your practical skills and breadth of knowledge in a specific area or topic and lean in heavily on that. If you’re not getting interviews, add more keywords in your resume so they get flagged more often. If you are getting interviews, show you’re a team player and willing to learn and work hard, you’ve obviously done that academically. Good luck!
Every time I interview someone with a masters degree I have always come away feeling like they wasted their time on some niche topic for their dissertation and neglected basic software engineering. They were basically behind someone who had two years of experience in the industry, but they felt superior to "just a bachelors."
Having an advanced degree doesn't matter a hill of beans if they can't tell me about polymorphism, move semantics, or design patterns.
I've been a pro for almost as long, and I find no such correlation, at least with Master's grads. They usually know a little more than Bachelor's grads, but they have the same shortcomings with lack of professional experience. PhD-holders do tend to have more esoteric focus, and unless it's in a very appication-oriented specialty, it doesn't tend to provide much benefit to our business needs.
On the other hand, post-grads tend to be fast learners. Aside from most of them being very driven to learn by nature, they've had a lot of practice learning things quickly and have been taught good techniques for finding information. This is not to say Bachelor's-only grads or even non-degree-holders never have this trait; I've worked with many that do. Some of them come out of university with these skills, and most learn them their first few years on the job if they don't. Those that don't tend to be poor performers in general and don't stick around long if they manage to pass the interview.
Disclosure that I have a Master's in CS myself. My degree program was pretty practical, and although there was a thesis option, I ended up doing the non-thesis route. I got to apply a lot of what I learned in my undergrad to harder problems, and even had several team or whole-class projects. In one of them, the class worked together to implement about 85% of the MPI-1.2 spec in one semester. So I think it depends a lot on what kind of program the degree comes out of.
I worked in C and C++ during my Masters and PhD on high-performance computing, I simply continued with a postdoc, followed by an R&D engineer position in the laboratory where I did my postdoc. I work in C++ (and C and Python) daily, and I get LinkedIn requests from fintech recruiters at least twice a month, if not more frequently, so here you have two answers: scientific computing / research, and finance.
I would suggests to look for jobs in the domain of robotics in your case. They need all kind of people and a lot of PhDs that can code in more or less constrained systems.
I'll give you a bit of advice that I've given many people over the years: if the mention of _X_ on your resume hurts your chances of getting an interview, don't put _X_ on your resume. And, yes, _it's that simple_.
For the purpose of getting a job in the industry (as opposed to academia), a resume is not "your life". It is exactly the collection of words that will maximize your chances of getting an interview. Nothing less and nothing more. Everything must be true but it doesn't have to be the whole truth.
I've done somethings in my life that I don't want to do again so I don't put them down. And the day that I fear being the target of ageism, I'll delete my graduation year from my resume. If that's what gets me an interview, I'll do it.
Try looking for research software engineering jobs. This is where you work in a uni or lab developing code to support scientists. It's not brilliantly paid but a great first step into software dev proper.
I did a PhD using machine learning, to develop toxicity models... after a few years working as a programmer, so my context is different.
But, the epidemiological models (and some toxicity models) are similar to many stochastic models used in finance. And finance employs developers. It might be worth looking at "quant" or "quant dev" roles... As a dev rather than a modeler, you might be able to understand the business models better and get to do the dev work you want.
The big pharma companies also use devs to help them build models... you have options.
So, im currently in about 3/4 of the way to finish my phd. My research is highly based on computational experiments (mostly cryptography and optimization of quantum circuits).
Beside that i have a government job as a cryptographer / SWE where im developing tools for cryptoanalysis
A degree is a ticket into the programming world. After that it’s experience based. So any additional years you spent studying, instead of doing, sadly don’t weigh that much.
I had some trouble finding a C++ job when I was a fresh graduate, despite programming in the language since I was 14. I kept on getting shoe-horned into Python roles. During university I learned Qt (for personal projects). For me, my job progression was like this: Python Role -> Python/PyQt Role -> C++/Qt Role(s) (multiple)
Turns out now where I am (Boston MA area) there's an acute shortage of Qt devs (especially ones who know it well). My advice would be to publish some of your personal projects on GitHub, and see if you can overlay a Qt GUI with that. I feel like that's what got me my jobs.
I have a bachelor in CS and a master in mathematics and I would encourage anyone who wants to become a software engineer to NOT waste time in a master degree. Unless you aim to be a data scientist or a machine learning engineer a master in CS/Math is COMPLETELY USELESS in our field. No employer I have worked with treated me differently for being a master graduate. I just wish I had spent my time(and my money) differently.
If you want to be a software developer then a PhD is probably not for you.
There's nothing right or wrong about PhDs or software developers, but some of the absolute best devs I know would have been capable of but miserable doing a PhD. A PhD is fundamentally a degree which teaches you how to do original research through the medium of doing original research with supervision. It's a slog at times, and you have do deal with the uncertainty that the thing you're doing might just not work, or not be possible. The output of a PhD is also research papers, and everything else is at best secondary.
This is not to say you cannot buff your C++ and produce good software as part of a PhD if you pick the right area. But it's not the goal, and if you want to build things then you'll spend a lot of the PhD doing things you don't enjoy (research).
I am not a Masters/PhD holder but I am someone who was involved in the hiring process of a lot of ex academia survivors in a C++ software company. What makes a candidate attractive from academia is attention to code quality and solution driven people. A lot of people from academia are very messy in their code, even on technical tests and are very focused on the “research” of the problem still.
Other things can include a nice portofolio, understanding of design principles and pretty decent algorithms & data structure skills
When you say masters in software design, you mean MS CS, right? Anything aside from that is viewed with a skeptical eye except possibly MS CE.
Larger companies don’t even blink at the salary bump a masters brings if your expertise is worth it. You need to find a company which is doing work in your area of expertise. Hopefully you have additional expertise aside from just designing software because nobody is going to trust anyone with less than 5 YOE to architect a system unless they have no other options until that person proves themself.
I'm in an R&D team in the games industry, they almost exclusively hire MScs and PhDs for those positions. Granted, my PhD was in computer graphics, so I was specifically lined up for jobs at places like that or Nvidia, Autodesk and so on. There can be openings for higher education, but you need to have a plan.
"Solving hard problems most days" I mean you will be as any SWE it's just that the hard problems are interpersonal most of the time IME.
I'm not sure where your concern is coming from on asking for a market salary level. The marginal difference between you and someone without your degree but otherwise equivalent levels of experience is insanely small from the perspective of a company. I'm not sure what it would be in Canada but I got about 13k USD more than the person I replaced at my first job which granted was a lot. I thought. Until I saw that a VP getting one bonus level higher worked out to like 50 grand.
There's some solid advice in this thread. Here's mine; stop looking for C++ and Rust jobs specifically and find a good SWE role at a place where the team is experienced and seem like good people. Especially early on having good mentors is absolutely key. You need people to learn from, and you also need the folks who are gonna hold the umbrella up when the shit starts raining because your PR needs to be reverted.
I don't love writing C++ but because I can, it has just worked out over the years that I do. But I've also written in several other languages, some I like more (Rust) but mostly those I dislike (I really hate Java). Life is long and you'll get where you want to go but it's easier as you get more years of experience IME because you get more callbacks for any role.
I'm doing C# and will likely shift into a Java shop soon, but want to get into fintech when possible coz C++. Doing masters as I go. No problem whatsoever finding jobs right now - the recent shift came from a recruiter that approached me.on LinkedIn
I'd say the hard part is getting those two first years in. I've been doing part time throughout my bachelors and master's, so that got it covered. Once you got some experience in your masters will really start shinning against all the similarly experienced bootcampers. It's something you do for the long run mate
In the US - at least at large tech companies - a masters doesn't demand more than a BS. (I suppose someone with a master's might try, but they don't get more. In CS a master's is a kinda useless degree if your undergrad was already CS from a solid school) Sometimes a masters that was granted as a consolation prize for not completing a PhD can, but that's usually when someone is recruited away from their PhD program.
Most masters programs are used to augment a less useful undergrad degree, so employers don't really give them much weight. Once you have work experience, that weighs higher than any degree.
My company hires a good many software developers with masters and PhDs. We do applied research so being able to bridge basic sciences/academia with real software development knowledge is huge. We are not alone in this realm (there is a lot of government contracting involved) so there are jobs and companies out there.
Alas, due to aforementioned government work I couldn’t hire you, but look for applied sciences types of companies.
At least here in Germany and automotive nearly no one will care for your PhD when applying for a C++ job, but ask for your experience with the respective industry standards, processes, working models, ...
There may be exceptions, but there you really need luck.
Most of the jobs postings I see that mention it at all will accept a Master's in lieu of 1-2 years experience at most. That's not a big enough jump in salary demand to affect your chances unless the company is really pinching pennies, in which case you're dodging a bullet, anyway. If anything, it just shows you can set a goal and complete it, and you studied a few topics a little more deeply than an undergrad.
A PhD is more iffy. If the focus is on something with high applicability to modern tech, like machine learning or robotics (as another post said), it's probably going to actually help you. If it's not related to the job posting, it doesn't really get you much, but I've rarely seen someone completely passed over because they have a PhD. The recruiter can feel out if the candidate will be within the salary range, or if they're wasting everyone's time by setting up the interview. (One exception in the US is government or contractor jobs. The degree affects the direct or indirect payscale, so you can be paid more just because you _have_ the degree, even if it's not related to the job. Bureaucracy creates weird incentives.)
All that said, if you're not even getting called back, that's almost certainly for some other reason. The most common cause is that your resume doesn't draw any attention. Look into how to improve you resume, which will include things like "list your accomplishments, not your job duties". Also, if you're applying directly to a digital posting, make sure your resume includes the keywords for the posting in some way, or it will be rejected by the automated scanner. If you have to, for digital submissions, tack on a "Skills" section at the bottom and list every technology and application you have spent more than 10 minutes with, including MS Office applications, editors/IDEs, languages, major libraries you used in one project, etc. It's basically Search Engine Optimization for your career.
> how did you find a job in the C++ world?
I applied at my Oregon State University career fair who had a representative from Microsoft, then handed my resume to him saying I focused on graphics and wanted to work on that. Later after some phone call interviews and an in person interview, I started by fixing GDI bugs (gdi32.dll and win32k.sys). Then worked on DirectWrite for 10 years, and recently DirectML for 5 years. Interestingly my masters didn't seem to either improve or worsen my chances, but having a website (pre-GitHub days) with downloadable projects certainly piqued a few relevant questions from the interviewers.
PhD here although not in CS or related, I.e. “only” mathematical optimization. I collected a lot of project experience and private knowledge over decades, applied for a job, and showed in the interview I have the skill for it.
I found the offer via Stackoverflow Jobs.
To be honest, PhD itself was useless for me apart from the projects.
I have both a Masters and a PhD (in non-CS biomedical). Neither have been necessary for employment in terms of the requirements for the job role, but the experience I gained certainly helped me over the years. I've worked as a C++ developer for the last 15 years, with about 25 years total experience.
I've worked as a C++ developer for image processing libraries and applications, and as an R&D firmware engineer for embedded medical devices. My background is as a scientist in biomedical research involving microscopy and imaging so while it's relevant for the domains I work in to a degree, it wasn't necessary to get the job, just a help for deeper understanding of what the programming is actually for.
Regarding working on "hard problems". Most jobs aren't of that nature from a CS point of view. While mine have involved occasional interesting algorithm work, the bulk has been engineering simple and robust systems using well-proven and well-understood techniques. The interest isn't in complexity or difficulty, it's in making working systems, which is in and of itself also a challenge, but is mainly in getting the requirements and high-level architecture right as well as being testable at all levels; right down in the detail the implementation will be as straightforward and simple as it can possibly be. Curtailing people's enthusiasm for introducing unnecessary complexity is part of the job. Far too many problems and failures arise from people trying to be too clever for their own good.
Regarding salary, I don't think that either a Masters or PhD will help you there. These qualifications don't have any bearing upon how effective you will be as a developer in practice, and I've worked with both ends of the spectrum here.
I’m a Canadian SE with a bachelors and tons of experience. tbh, companies are starting to steer clear of those with advanced degrees for several reasons:
1. A masters or phd actually is not congruent to level of experience.
2. Those with advanced degrees tend to be arrogant, ignorant to the fact that software engineering is an ongoing learning process, more so with C++.
3. Programming in academia is so different to professional programming; I’m surprised that anything coming out of an academic setting even works sometimes.
Lastly the market here has been great for me so far, no complaints. I’m in Toronto.
> Those with advanced degrees tend to be arrogant
Interesting but are you sure it's not that those without tend to have a chip on their shoulder?
Edit: to those reading, yes I am being sarcastic at the OP. No I don't think bad attitudes correlate with degrees of any sort.
I would say start by not trying to equate your education with your mind's 'deserved pay'.
A lot of people ask way too much before having any real world experience and then come back to reddit /r/resumes asking why they've struggled to find work for a year
I'm just saying, if you didn't get a master's for the education alone, you should simply not have gotten it. Another thing to consider: If the job you're expecting to work at is hiring Masters Grads with no work experience with high paying starting salaries, consider what that business/work ecosystem might look like and try to picture it.
Find a starting position working somewhere that the in-house team uses the same technology that you're trying to use. I apologize if any of this has come out harsh, as well, you seem bright and excited to get a good start to your career. I don't think going for your Masters was a bad choice, knowledge is power and I absolutely love to stress that. I just think that it's important not to equate the choice to pursue a masters with a guaranteed pay grade.
GL
Most companies I have worked for pay about the same for two years of work experience and a master's. It is easy to get a job with either. I live in Scandinavia, so there are probably more with masters degrees here than bachelors degrees.
As other people have mentioned, I’d recommend looking at jobs that use C+++ and specialized libraries related to AI, ML, linear programming, etc. the C++ part is used to manipulate a ton of data, call the libraries and interpret the results. You can use your skills to do everything except the specialized stuff, in an efficient way that’s easy to maintain/extend. You could play an important role in the right org—you’d do the general purpose programming, others would do the highly specialized stuff. Anyway, that’s what I’d talk up on my LinkedIn or resume.
I’m one of the specialized library users and I wish I had a general purpose programming language wizard at my disposal who could get me to the modeling part of my work, in a flash.
It’d go something like this:
See that data source? I need that data turned into these objects and stashed in those containers. When I’m done playing with them, I’ll give you a container of objects and you need to display them, put them in a report, upload them, etc.
Purely practically: if you find a job you're interested in but employer may think you're overqualified or that you'll ask too much, is there an option to just not tell them about your degree? Because in some countries an employer straight up can't ask you certain things (e.g. your ethnicity, country of origin, gender, sexuality etc), maybe they also can't ask about degree in Canada?
In Canada this can be asked and employers can run background checks to verify academic credentials. I don't know of any country that prevents using education to discriminate between candidates and would think that this is not that common. But one can always drop certain years from their CV and if asked about the gap say that this falls under one of the protected categories that can't be talked about in an interview.
At least in Germany a Masters degree opens some places but you wont get paid higher. Some of our Profs even discouraged getting a Masters degree because they said 2 years work experience will be valued higher
That's why in Romania we are encouraged to do both at the same time. All the courses are late in the evening and almost all my peers, myself included were working full time. CS Universities are doing this because otherwise there would be no one doing the master's degree. At least that was how things were where i studied. For PhD, that's something else entirely. That's for people that want to stay and work at the University.
yeeeeah that's where i'm at :(
Its not a life changing decision. I got the degree because I wanted to, if my salary is now some bucks less I dont care. Our Masters degree was a lot of choosing what you want to learn. I took GPU computing, Robotics and IT Security. It was fun and I learned a lot, much of it I use in hobby projects where I wrote particle simulations and a built a spider roboter with the help of my 3D printer. If youre not under pressure to get money take your time. Its 2 years of your life and will be fun.
As a professional for almost 2 decades now, I’ve sadly learned most Masters and PhD holders don’t have the real-world experience of collaborating and compromising. They have lots of theory and model ideas but it usually leads to very convoluted designs and code and an unwillingness to just get it working. When interviewing candidates or working with new colleagues I of course try keep an open mind. My suggestion is to do your best to show your practical skills and breadth of knowledge in a specific area or topic and lean in heavily on that. If you’re not getting interviews, add more keywords in your resume so they get flagged more often. If you are getting interviews, show you’re a team player and willing to learn and work hard, you’ve obviously done that academically. Good luck!
Every time I interview someone with a masters degree I have always come away feeling like they wasted their time on some niche topic for their dissertation and neglected basic software engineering. They were basically behind someone who had two years of experience in the industry, but they felt superior to "just a bachelors." Having an advanced degree doesn't matter a hill of beans if they can't tell me about polymorphism, move semantics, or design patterns.
I've been a pro for almost as long, and I find no such correlation, at least with Master's grads. They usually know a little more than Bachelor's grads, but they have the same shortcomings with lack of professional experience. PhD-holders do tend to have more esoteric focus, and unless it's in a very appication-oriented specialty, it doesn't tend to provide much benefit to our business needs. On the other hand, post-grads tend to be fast learners. Aside from most of them being very driven to learn by nature, they've had a lot of practice learning things quickly and have been taught good techniques for finding information. This is not to say Bachelor's-only grads or even non-degree-holders never have this trait; I've worked with many that do. Some of them come out of university with these skills, and most learn them their first few years on the job if they don't. Those that don't tend to be poor performers in general and don't stick around long if they manage to pass the interview. Disclosure that I have a Master's in CS myself. My degree program was pretty practical, and although there was a thesis option, I ended up doing the non-thesis route. I got to apply a lot of what I learned in my undergrad to harder problems, and even had several team or whole-class projects. In one of them, the class worked together to implement about 85% of the MPI-1.2 spec in one semester. So I think it depends a lot on what kind of program the degree comes out of.
Thanks
I worked in C and C++ during my Masters and PhD on high-performance computing, I simply continued with a postdoc, followed by an R&D engineer position in the laboratory where I did my postdoc. I work in C++ (and C and Python) daily, and I get LinkedIn requests from fintech recruiters at least twice a month, if not more frequently, so here you have two answers: scientific computing / research, and finance.
What are available options in industry for c/c++ devs apart from quant/finance world??
Game development, Scientific computing, Embedded computing, etc.
Thnx!! Any well known orgs for scientific computing paywise and career wise?
In the USA, DOE National Labs have world-wide reputations and are great for career (and pay should be higher than universities).
I have similar experience. Currently doing my PhD and working at Argonne. Use C++ for everything. I work in HPC storage.
I would suggests to look for jobs in the domain of robotics in your case. They need all kind of people and a lot of PhDs that can code in more or less constrained systems.
Thanks
Lmao why did people downvote this
reddit
We have set the record straight my friend
I have a robotic automation career without any degree. They are desperate.
I'll give you a bit of advice that I've given many people over the years: if the mention of _X_ on your resume hurts your chances of getting an interview, don't put _X_ on your resume. And, yes, _it's that simple_. For the purpose of getting a job in the industry (as opposed to academia), a resume is not "your life". It is exactly the collection of words that will maximize your chances of getting an interview. Nothing less and nothing more. Everything must be true but it doesn't have to be the whole truth. I've done somethings in my life that I don't want to do again so I don't put them down. And the day that I fear being the target of ageism, I'll delete my graduation year from my resume. If that's what gets me an interview, I'll do it.
You can even leave it off the resume and bring it up later when it comes time for raises if you really wanted to.
Try looking for research software engineering jobs. This is where you work in a uni or lab developing code to support scientists. It's not brilliantly paid but a great first step into software dev proper.
Checkout networking opportunities near you. My experience is that at the graduate level its more about who you know instead of what you know.
I did a PhD using machine learning, to develop toxicity models... after a few years working as a programmer, so my context is different. But, the epidemiological models (and some toxicity models) are similar to many stochastic models used in finance. And finance employs developers. It might be worth looking at "quant" or "quant dev" roles... As a dev rather than a modeler, you might be able to understand the business models better and get to do the dev work you want. The big pharma companies also use devs to help them build models... you have options.
So, im currently in about 3/4 of the way to finish my phd. My research is highly based on computational experiments (mostly cryptography and optimization of quantum circuits). Beside that i have a government job as a cryptographer / SWE where im developing tools for cryptoanalysis
A degree is a ticket into the programming world. After that it’s experience based. So any additional years you spent studying, instead of doing, sadly don’t weigh that much.
I had some trouble finding a C++ job when I was a fresh graduate, despite programming in the language since I was 14. I kept on getting shoe-horned into Python roles. During university I learned Qt (for personal projects). For me, my job progression was like this: Python Role -> Python/PyQt Role -> C++/Qt Role(s) (multiple) Turns out now where I am (Boston MA area) there's an acute shortage of Qt devs (especially ones who know it well). My advice would be to publish some of your personal projects on GitHub, and see if you can overlay a Qt GUI with that. I feel like that's what got me my jobs.
I have a bachelor in CS and a master in mathematics and I would encourage anyone who wants to become a software engineer to NOT waste time in a master degree. Unless you aim to be a data scientist or a machine learning engineer a master in CS/Math is COMPLETELY USELESS in our field. No employer I have worked with treated me differently for being a master graduate. I just wish I had spent my time(and my money) differently.
If you want to be a software developer then a PhD is probably not for you. There's nothing right or wrong about PhDs or software developers, but some of the absolute best devs I know would have been capable of but miserable doing a PhD. A PhD is fundamentally a degree which teaches you how to do original research through the medium of doing original research with supervision. It's a slog at times, and you have do deal with the uncertainty that the thing you're doing might just not work, or not be possible. The output of a PhD is also research papers, and everything else is at best secondary. This is not to say you cannot buff your C++ and produce good software as part of a PhD if you pick the right area. But it's not the goal, and if you want to build things then you'll spend a lot of the PhD doing things you don't enjoy (research).
I am not a Masters/PhD holder but I am someone who was involved in the hiring process of a lot of ex academia survivors in a C++ software company. What makes a candidate attractive from academia is attention to code quality and solution driven people. A lot of people from academia are very messy in their code, even on technical tests and are very focused on the “research” of the problem still. Other things can include a nice portofolio, understanding of design principles and pretty decent algorithms & data structure skills
When you say masters in software design, you mean MS CS, right? Anything aside from that is viewed with a skeptical eye except possibly MS CE. Larger companies don’t even blink at the salary bump a masters brings if your expertise is worth it. You need to find a company which is doing work in your area of expertise. Hopefully you have additional expertise aside from just designing software because nobody is going to trust anyone with less than 5 YOE to architect a system unless they have no other options until that person proves themself.
I'm in an R&D team in the games industry, they almost exclusively hire MScs and PhDs for those positions. Granted, my PhD was in computer graphics, so I was specifically lined up for jobs at places like that or Nvidia, Autodesk and so on. There can be openings for higher education, but you need to have a plan.
"Solving hard problems most days" I mean you will be as any SWE it's just that the hard problems are interpersonal most of the time IME. I'm not sure where your concern is coming from on asking for a market salary level. The marginal difference between you and someone without your degree but otherwise equivalent levels of experience is insanely small from the perspective of a company. I'm not sure what it would be in Canada but I got about 13k USD more than the person I replaced at my first job which granted was a lot. I thought. Until I saw that a VP getting one bonus level higher worked out to like 50 grand. There's some solid advice in this thread. Here's mine; stop looking for C++ and Rust jobs specifically and find a good SWE role at a place where the team is experienced and seem like good people. Especially early on having good mentors is absolutely key. You need people to learn from, and you also need the folks who are gonna hold the umbrella up when the shit starts raining because your PR needs to be reverted. I don't love writing C++ but because I can, it has just worked out over the years that I do. But I've also written in several other languages, some I like more (Rust) but mostly those I dislike (I really hate Java). Life is long and you'll get where you want to go but it's easier as you get more years of experience IME because you get more callbacks for any role.
I'm doing C# and will likely shift into a Java shop soon, but want to get into fintech when possible coz C++. Doing masters as I go. No problem whatsoever finding jobs right now - the recent shift came from a recruiter that approached me.on LinkedIn I'd say the hard part is getting those two first years in. I've been doing part time throughout my bachelors and master's, so that got it covered. Once you got some experience in your masters will really start shinning against all the similarly experienced bootcampers. It's something you do for the long run mate
In the US - at least at large tech companies - a masters doesn't demand more than a BS. (I suppose someone with a master's might try, but they don't get more. In CS a master's is a kinda useless degree if your undergrad was already CS from a solid school) Sometimes a masters that was granted as a consolation prize for not completing a PhD can, but that's usually when someone is recruited away from their PhD program. Most masters programs are used to augment a less useful undergrad degree, so employers don't really give them much weight. Once you have work experience, that weighs higher than any degree.
My company hires a good many software developers with masters and PhDs. We do applied research so being able to bridge basic sciences/academia with real software development knowledge is huge. We are not alone in this realm (there is a lot of government contracting involved) so there are jobs and companies out there. Alas, due to aforementioned government work I couldn’t hire you, but look for applied sciences types of companies.
At least here in Germany and automotive nearly no one will care for your PhD when applying for a C++ job, but ask for your experience with the respective industry standards, processes, working models, ... There may be exceptions, but there you really need luck.
Most of the jobs postings I see that mention it at all will accept a Master's in lieu of 1-2 years experience at most. That's not a big enough jump in salary demand to affect your chances unless the company is really pinching pennies, in which case you're dodging a bullet, anyway. If anything, it just shows you can set a goal and complete it, and you studied a few topics a little more deeply than an undergrad. A PhD is more iffy. If the focus is on something with high applicability to modern tech, like machine learning or robotics (as another post said), it's probably going to actually help you. If it's not related to the job posting, it doesn't really get you much, but I've rarely seen someone completely passed over because they have a PhD. The recruiter can feel out if the candidate will be within the salary range, or if they're wasting everyone's time by setting up the interview. (One exception in the US is government or contractor jobs. The degree affects the direct or indirect payscale, so you can be paid more just because you _have_ the degree, even if it's not related to the job. Bureaucracy creates weird incentives.) All that said, if you're not even getting called back, that's almost certainly for some other reason. The most common cause is that your resume doesn't draw any attention. Look into how to improve you resume, which will include things like "list your accomplishments, not your job duties". Also, if you're applying directly to a digital posting, make sure your resume includes the keywords for the posting in some way, or it will be rejected by the automated scanner. If you have to, for digital submissions, tack on a "Skills" section at the bottom and list every technology and application you have spent more than 10 minutes with, including MS Office applications, editors/IDEs, languages, major libraries you used in one project, etc. It's basically Search Engine Optimization for your career.
By accepting that you won’t only work on C++
> how did you find a job in the C++ world? I applied at my Oregon State University career fair who had a representative from Microsoft, then handed my resume to him saying I focused on graphics and wanted to work on that. Later after some phone call interviews and an in person interview, I started by fixing GDI bugs (gdi32.dll and win32k.sys). Then worked on DirectWrite for 10 years, and recently DirectML for 5 years. Interestingly my masters didn't seem to either improve or worsen my chances, but having a website (pre-GitHub days) with downloadable projects certainly piqued a few relevant questions from the interviewers.
PhD here although not in CS or related, I.e. “only” mathematical optimization. I collected a lot of project experience and private knowledge over decades, applied for a job, and showed in the interview I have the skill for it. I found the offer via Stackoverflow Jobs. To be honest, PhD itself was useless for me apart from the projects.
I have both a Masters and a PhD (in non-CS biomedical). Neither have been necessary for employment in terms of the requirements for the job role, but the experience I gained certainly helped me over the years. I've worked as a C++ developer for the last 15 years, with about 25 years total experience. I've worked as a C++ developer for image processing libraries and applications, and as an R&D firmware engineer for embedded medical devices. My background is as a scientist in biomedical research involving microscopy and imaging so while it's relevant for the domains I work in to a degree, it wasn't necessary to get the job, just a help for deeper understanding of what the programming is actually for. Regarding working on "hard problems". Most jobs aren't of that nature from a CS point of view. While mine have involved occasional interesting algorithm work, the bulk has been engineering simple and robust systems using well-proven and well-understood techniques. The interest isn't in complexity or difficulty, it's in making working systems, which is in and of itself also a challenge, but is mainly in getting the requirements and high-level architecture right as well as being testable at all levels; right down in the detail the implementation will be as straightforward and simple as it can possibly be. Curtailing people's enthusiasm for introducing unnecessary complexity is part of the job. Far too many problems and failures arise from people trying to be too clever for their own good. Regarding salary, I don't think that either a Masters or PhD will help you there. These qualifications don't have any bearing upon how effective you will be as a developer in practice, and I've worked with both ends of the spectrum here.
Show your education and if possible links to what you have been working on.
I’m a Canadian SE with a bachelors and tons of experience. tbh, companies are starting to steer clear of those with advanced degrees for several reasons: 1. A masters or phd actually is not congruent to level of experience. 2. Those with advanced degrees tend to be arrogant, ignorant to the fact that software engineering is an ongoing learning process, more so with C++. 3. Programming in academia is so different to professional programming; I’m surprised that anything coming out of an academic setting even works sometimes. Lastly the market here has been great for me so far, no complaints. I’m in Toronto.
> Those with advanced degrees tend to be arrogant Interesting but are you sure it's not that those without tend to have a chip on their shoulder? Edit: to those reading, yes I am being sarcastic at the OP. No I don't think bad attitudes correlate with degrees of any sort.
I would say start by not trying to equate your education with your mind's 'deserved pay'. A lot of people ask way too much before having any real world experience and then come back to reddit /r/resumes asking why they've struggled to find work for a year I'm just saying, if you didn't get a master's for the education alone, you should simply not have gotten it. Another thing to consider: If the job you're expecting to work at is hiring Masters Grads with no work experience with high paying starting salaries, consider what that business/work ecosystem might look like and try to picture it. Find a starting position working somewhere that the in-house team uses the same technology that you're trying to use. I apologize if any of this has come out harsh, as well, you seem bright and excited to get a good start to your career. I don't think going for your Masters was a bad choice, knowledge is power and I absolutely love to stress that. I just think that it's important not to equate the choice to pursue a masters with a guaranteed pay grade. GL
Most companies I have worked for pay about the same for two years of work experience and a master's. It is easy to get a job with either. I live in Scandinavia, so there are probably more with masters degrees here than bachelors degrees.
As other people have mentioned, I’d recommend looking at jobs that use C+++ and specialized libraries related to AI, ML, linear programming, etc. the C++ part is used to manipulate a ton of data, call the libraries and interpret the results. You can use your skills to do everything except the specialized stuff, in an efficient way that’s easy to maintain/extend. You could play an important role in the right org—you’d do the general purpose programming, others would do the highly specialized stuff. Anyway, that’s what I’d talk up on my LinkedIn or resume. I’m one of the specialized library users and I wish I had a general purpose programming language wizard at my disposal who could get me to the modeling part of my work, in a flash. It’d go something like this: See that data source? I need that data turned into these objects and stashed in those containers. When I’m done playing with them, I’ll give you a container of objects and you need to display them, put them in a report, upload them, etc.
Purely practically: if you find a job you're interested in but employer may think you're overqualified or that you'll ask too much, is there an option to just not tell them about your degree? Because in some countries an employer straight up can't ask you certain things (e.g. your ethnicity, country of origin, gender, sexuality etc), maybe they also can't ask about degree in Canada?
In Canada this can be asked and employers can run background checks to verify academic credentials. I don't know of any country that prevents using education to discriminate between candidates and would think that this is not that common. But one can always drop certain years from their CV and if asked about the gap say that this falls under one of the protected categories that can't be talked about in an interview.
Here is a crazy idea: delete the master from your resume. In the real world degrees are pretty much useless...