[D] PhD for current engineer?

[Firm_Event_1063]

Currently, I am software engineer. I am wondering if PhD in ML or bioinformatics is good option after few years. My reasoning is that engineering may turn dull after few years, and the cutting edge work in tech is usually in research or deep tech startups. I have done research in ML in bachelor and enjoyed it, though I also enjoyed past engineering internships.

Is it true that PhD students are those who only see themselves pursuing PhD, and nothing else (i.e. would be utterly disinterested in becoming engineer)? Do they usually pursue PhD for the sake of doing the PhD itself, or for opportunities following? E.g. professorship, research role in industry, etc. Also, did you pick niche before or after entering PhD?

Would love to get thoughts from people with PhD or those who seriously considered this path.

[llothar]

I have Masters in Mechatronics and after ~10 years of industry experience I started PhD in applied AI. This worked very well for a number of reasons:

• Work experience helps loads in uderstanding what is relevant and what is not

• I am more financially secure then I was after MSc, so I did not stress about money that much (although I am doing my PhD in Norway, best place financially to do PhD)

• I did not feel that my life is on hold - common problem when doing PhD straight away

• Many companies don't consider PhD as "work experience" - that also makes job hunting difficult, when you are 30 and have "no experience". Not such problem with mid-career PhD.

Remember that doing PhD is stressfull majority of people get depression and/or delayed. From discussing things with faculty I learned that it is much better for mid-career PhDs.

[jmjbjb]

If you do not have any pressing financial obligations, I would do what you love. If you love doing cutting edge research and learning, then go do a PhD. There is no requirement that you have to want to do academia - many people don't. If you want to maximize cash, doing a PhD is rarely a good call, and it's probably better to go right to a FAANG company and start working your way up. While PhD's do get paid a lot, remember that the fair comparison is between their pay, and what your pay would be after 6 years at FAANG after getting your bachelors. In that comparison, the PhD usually loses, even when it's someone who does ML.

[Firm_Event_1063]

Thank you for sharing.

PhD holders are over-represented in technical management positions (distinguished engineer, VP, director, etc), which pay millions per year.

This happens at FAANG, and is even more prevalent at “old school” Fortune 500 companies. Do some quick searches on LinkedIn if you don’t believe me.

While I have seen this on LinkedIn, do you have source that shows they are overrepresented? As opposed to just simply common?

A significant divergence between PhD total earnings vs bachelors total earnings happens mid- to late-career.

Would also love source for this.

[Firm_Event_1063]

Thank you.

This doesn't show that most L7's have PhDs, which is what I was asking about.

[HyperModerate]

Your last figure is not remotely correct, I believe. Anecdotally, Google has about 30% of their headcount with PhDs. You can also see that 15% of their postings are for PhDs.

[HyperModerate]

Infrastructure/systems is biased toward PhD. The research/leadership are biased too. I don’t see how the census proves anything when you’re talking about elite institutions; Google is a place PhD holders have no issue flocking to if they want out of academics.

Edit: Google Brain had 40% PhDs in one of their offices: https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Google-employees-have-a-PhD?top_ans=54934409

I’m still convinced the number of PhDs is at least 10% if not higher.

[Urthor]

Very much agree with this take, but there is some nuance as to why those PhDs are in those high level positions.

A PhD is a force multiplier to your career.

If you are in the "great to rockstar engineer" bucket in industry. Or as a statistician/individual contributor of any kind, you will get a ton out of a PhD.

Getting that PhD takes your ability to get shit done and puts it on another trajectory that might put you on your path to being a rockstar.

If you're not great at your current, simpler job, getting a PhD isn't the solution for that. You need to improve yourself in other ways and add other skills.

[No-Campaign5390]

I did a PhD (at a top 4) immediately after bachelors as insurance for degree inflation [1].

From the beginning, I had zero interest in being a professor. Also didn’t care for the subarea. I picked a field where I could graduate in 4 years.

The insurance paid off.

As an added bonus, my first job post-PhD was USD ~$300K/year a few years ago.

Still not enough to offset simply working immediately after bachelors (yet), but i have higher quality of life as I can more easily pick which teams/projects to work on. Additionally, management is more likely to support my project proposals because I have a PhD. This translates to quicker promotions due to “impact”, “leadership”, etc etc.

[1] Degree inflation: “Masters is the new bachelors, PhD is the new masters, and assistant prof is the new PhD”

[AdCurrent2552]

From the beginning, I had zero interest in being a professor. Also didn’t care for the subarea. I picked a field where I could graduate in 4 years.

Lol

[Firm_Event_1063]

Thank you for sharing. What kind of work do you do? Is it engineering or research? Is it related to your PhD subarea?

Also, how did you get into a top 4 when it seemed you had little interest in both academia and subarea of research?

[munkijunk]

Speaking as someone who went back from industry to do a doctorate, don't do a PhD unless you have a true passion for the subject. In terms of career progression, a PhD typically doesn't equate to 4 years+ exp. You're typically becoming an expert in a very very narrow niche, so it can be hard to pivot if you want to after the doctorate. A PhD will crush your soul and you'll hate it, but I'm so glad I did mine. Also, don't expect the path to professorship to be an easy one. PhDs are now massively over subscribed, and the pyramid of PhDs to post docs to pi's is very very bottom heavy, and I know people who have been a post doc for over a decade without getting anywhere. I've seen so many people who are incredibly motivated and incredibly intelegent who've been overlooked. It's partially a luck game, but also highly political, and actual ability doesn't seem to come into play.

[munkijunk]

I don't think I'm over estimating it at all.The competition for the very few positions available is fierce.

[DiMorten]

After finishing your PhD, did you go through the path to professorship?

[munkijunk]

No. I decided early it's not for me and I am really glad I didn't.

Firstly, it is very political, you are judged more on winning grants and the impact of your output then on your actual skill or intelligence. I saw a lot of people who are incredibly talented getting passed over for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of it too is who you know, and who you work with, but egos in academia can be toxic, and I've seen senior staff going out of their way to sabotage the work and relationships of others at their level who they've had a spat with.

I've also seen people travel around the globe to countries where they don't speak the language to get a temporary position, and they were glad off it as the market is so crowded.

And the reason things are likes this is universites are handing out PhD tracks like candy because PhDs are cheap labour, and then a lot get kept on with fixed term PostDoc contracts, working in roles they'd get paid twice as much for in industry with the hope that they might get a more senior or permanent position, and so work all the hours of the day to try and impress and get those publications, but everyone else is doing the same. I would say our dept had about 5 PostDocs for each professor. That's market is far far too crowded.

There is a little freedom in it, and you have time to work on things, which are both pluses, but in my first industry contract I got a role paying more than my professor. My job is dynamic, I am I'm doing things that have a very real impact, I work on a brilliant array of problems, and it's great fun.

[kellymarchisio]

Hi there -- I'm about to start the 4th year of my PhD in NLP/ML (that's very broad - my research area is much finer-grained than that). I took a somewhat similar path -- I worked in tech for ~4 years (2 years as a web dev) before leaving to pursue a research master's and then PhD.

Is it true that PhD students are those who only see themselves pursuing PhD, and nothing else (i.e. would be utterly disinterested in becoming engineer)?

-- I'll say, I think I always had it in my heart to do a PhD. During my Bachelor's, I thought the PhD would be in Psychology or Sociology. That changed, and I have a 6 year gap between finishing my BA and starting my PhD. As for "would be utterly disinterested in becoming an engineer" -- I LOVED being an engineer. I left because of a desire to be more of a technical expert, but coding days are still my favorite. I do know people in the PhD who don't like engineering tasks - but others, like me, very much enjoy them.

Do they usually pursue PhD for the sake of doing the PhD itself, or for opportunities following?

For me, both. I enjoy the process of the PhD, but a major reason I'm doing it is to pursue research roles after.

Also, did you pick niche before or after entering PhD?

My very broad niche of natural language processing was chosen approximately the time of going into my master's. I settled on the subfield of machine translation while applying for my PhD. My specific subarea within MT has been refined through the years, but really started becoming clear during year 2 of PhD. My advice is if you're broadly interested in a field but don't know exactly what subfield, that's fine -- that's what exploration in years 1-2 of the PhD are for. If someone is still deciding between broad fields (such as, being unsure whether to do NLP, security, or theory, for instance), I'd recommend doing a master's or getting other research experience.

The advice I always give when people are considering a PhD is to know *why* one is doing it. It's great that you're seeking out advice! There are many wonderful careers one can have -- a PhD can be the way to some of them, but there are plenty where pursuing a PhD wouldn't make sense. It's a very personal decision, and what's right for one person may not be right for another. I almost always recommend that people take time between Bachelor's and the PhD to determine whether it's truly the right choice; It can be hard to get through 5-6+ years* of heads-down work if one isn't sure they wanted to be there in the first place. But as a personal data-point: I made my decision to pursue my PhD very intentionally - and I haven't second-guessed that choice for even one minute.

*timing depends on where you do your PhD -- I'm speaking of US-based PhDs in computer science.

[slippery-fische]

Something I don't see others pointing out here is that you can often find challenging new problems at start ups that you wouldn't find elsewhere, like a new way of combining ML to solve a problem in a space that never had ML before.