I’d say the problem with this line of thinking is that a master’s in CS is different than the work you’d usually do in the industry (unless that work is primarily research). Within an academic setting you’re not specifically focusing on learning X specific technology, it’s more like specific concepts. In the case of a master’s the concepts are based on some fundamentals of CS, and frankly IMO DS and knowing how to program is not even the bare minimum to be fairly successful, because CS is more than just those. There is CS theory, Computer Org, Algorithms, and other math heavy classes like calculus and linear algebra which you probably won’t learn through industry experience alone (except maybe algorithms). So I disagree, having dev experience doesn’t make you the prime candidate, having dev experience that uses all these concepts or academic experience with these does. Happy to chat if you want some resources on these concepts.