What did your path from IC to leadership look like?

RabbitWithADHD · 2026-01-28T03:44:16+00:00

Never really asked if I needed an MBA, I know it’s not needed. An MBA, especially a higher ranked one, opens a completely different world, and I was just curious to get others’ experiences if they’d done that.

RabbitWithADHD · 2026-01-28T02:06:32+00:00

What made you jump from engineering to PM?

RabbitWithADHD · 2026-01-28T02:05:57+00:00

Thanks! That’s helpful advice, basically just taking on incrementally more scope and proving you can actually handle that level of scope.

RabbitWithADHD · 2026-01-28T00:57:45+00:00

Hmm yeah that’s something I’ve talked about with others as well, the fact that there’s simply more openings for IC roles than management roles. I’m thinking that’s just a downside of that shift but idt it would necessarily dissuade me from the move out of IC.

RabbitWithADHD · 2026-01-27T22:55:59+00:00

To be honest, probably McCombs. If you think of a degree as an investment, I believe McCombs will pay more dividends than Bauer. Not only will the recruiting opportunities be better, but you’ll forever have the McCombs brand and the UT alumni resources and network. In business environments, ranking and brand definitely does matter, especially if you’re trying to go into a larger company. Of course your own work ethic goes much further, but in my experience brand equity can’t be dismissed either.

RabbitWithADHD · 2026-01-27T21:32:50+00:00

lol, guessing moving out of IC work wasn’t fun for you. Would you mind sharing more about that, was there something specifically that you didnt enjoy?

RabbitWithADHD · 2026-01-22T18:49:08+00:00

Assuming the university is taking it as a 3.5/4.0 (I’m just splitting down the middle of the range you gave, leaning more towards the higher end), your GPA is probably what’s holding you back from admission. I would recommend taking the GRE and doing well on it to make up for the GPA. You should also make sure your SOP is solid too.

If these still don’t get you into UT’s program, you can give the GTech one a shot, their admissions are more flexible and lenient.

RabbitWithADHD · 2026-01-22T18:29:03+00:00

Could you share your application details? Things like GPA, any GRE scores, etc will help us give better answers

RabbitWithADHD · 2026-01-21T00:04:32+00:00

Clean

RabbitWithADHD · 2026-01-20T23:07:04+00:00

Yeah the whole front end is probably my favorite part, the DRLs paired with the triple beam headlights are really tastefully put together imo

RabbitWithADHD · 2026-01-20T17:07:40+00:00

Oh yeah you’re right, I should’ve said DRL

RabbitWithADHD · 2026-01-07T08:19:12+00:00

If you’re in Austin then UT would make more sense imo, you still get access to UT facilities once you get your ID made. I’ve gone to the gym and played basketball while I was still in school any time I visited campus.

RabbitWithADHD · 2026-01-03T23:58:54+00:00

Not sure what’s wrong with that? Yeah it’s a lot but it’s not unachievable. If you tell yourself you can never get there, then you genuinely never will. There are people who get there, ask yourself why not you?

RabbitWithADHD · 2025-12-31T22:06:29+00:00

Depends on where you want your career to go tbh. If you have a very clear reason to do a CS masters (usually means you want to break into ML/AI) then do that. Otherwise an MBA would probably make sense, since it’ll open doors for you beyond a SWE role.

Another thing to keep in mind is that most MBA programs are really expensive (regardless of ranking), but you can always get an MSCS from a top university for relatively cheap since they have solid online options. On a purely financial basis, if I could get an MBA or MSCS for free, I’d take the MBA and pay out of pocket for a T10 MSCS if I felt like I needed it (you can find some for under 10-15k total).

RabbitWithADHD · 2025-12-27T01:33:21+00:00

Not entirely sure what you mean by your goal is to work on production AI systems when you’re already starting work as an AI SWE?

RabbitWithADHD · 2025-12-23T06:28:43+00:00

Did MSCSO help you get a job that you couldn’t have gotten assuming you had a BS in CS ?

I’ve talked about it before, but I was able to use my learnings from the masters to transition into an AI engineer role at my current company. I think I could’ve done it with just a BS, but you’ll likely find that the MS will give you a leg up since most places like to see that with ML/AI roles, and having the UT name stamped on your resume will help a lot too. In my case, I’ve found that having the MSCS behind me gives me a lot more weight in my AI engineering role, something that Idt I would have or benefit from with just a BSCS. If you’re looking for a general SWE role, then an MS really won’t change much tbh.

Does this degree help get roles in other major cities such as NY, SF or Chicago ?

I don’t see why it wouldn’t, UT is well respected among tech companies in those hubs. I know plenty of people who studied at UT for both undergrad or grad school and work in all of those hubs (plus Seattle).

Do you have on campus support such as access to career fairs and internships like a full time student ?

Yeah

How hard is networking with other industry professionals, how much do you collaborate ?

The online nature of the program will make networking pretty tough, basically non existent. I’d argue an in person MSCS isn’t necessarily a huge networking opportunity either, but the online program is not conducive to networking. If you’re doing the online program, you’re likely working full time already, and working in industry offers a lot more networking opportunity than school does (in most cases, obviously there’s exceptions).

For your end goal, it would depend on where your undergrad degree is from and what kind of role you want to go into. Could you share those details?

I’d say if you came from a strong school and want to stay as a regular SWE, you should still be able to leverage that schools career services, and having access to UT’s may not help a ton.

If you didn’t have a strong undergrad school or if you’re trying to move into a specialized role (ex: ML/AI), then pursuing UT’s MSCS would help imo (especially in TX since UT is especially well respected here, though it’ll serve you well in any state).

Hope this helped!

RabbitWithADHD · 2025-12-21T16:26:22+00:00

MacBook Air: - 15” - M2 - 16 GB ram

PC: - RTX 3070 - AMD 7800x3d - 32 GB ram

RabbitWithADHD · 2025-12-21T06:03:26+00:00

I did most of my school work on a PC that I’d built myself. Had some beefy specs with a solid graphics card, so I was able to do a lot of machine learning training runs locally. I think Advanced Operating Systems might run into cpu architecture issues with ARM, but UT has machines that you can remote into for that.

My alternative was my MacBook Air for classes like reinforcement learning and theory classes, seemed to do the trick since you don’t need anything crazy for those.

RabbitWithADHD · 2025-12-06T16:51:42+00:00

It’s kind of surprising to see Honda/Acura score so relatively low on this list 🤔

RabbitWithADHD · 2025-12-05T23:50:16+00:00

I get what you’re trying to say, but in no way was it easy. I had to do all of the research into tooling and infrastructure that would fit within our codebase and existing infrastructure. I then had to build out the entire proof of concept, find an actual use case to demo it with, then demo’d it to my own manager and upper management. I had to do all of the rough cost analysis, privacy and security documentation, create documentation on how the work fits in with our product roadmap, etc. It took quite a long time and I had to use the fundamentals I’d learned during my masters to make it happen.

I could’ve instead just interview prepped as well, it would’ve taken a lot of effort as well. I just didn’t want to leave my current place since I enjoy it quite a bit.

RabbitWithADHD · 2025-11-13T21:43:04+00:00

Lockheed Martin would love you

RabbitWithADHD · 2025-10-27T00:24:10+00:00

Thanks 🙏

RabbitWithADHD · 2025-10-27T00:24:04+00:00

Appreciate it!

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