As a software engineer, a PhD doesn't seem worth it.
It's a lot of work and time, and most companies don't particularly need PhDs. Maybe a PhD gets a boost in pay starting out, but 5 years of experience cancels out most of the benefit. I suppose PhDs can get a shortcut into Prinicple or Senior roles, so there's some tangible benefit.
On the other hand, if a company is hiring PhDs and doing research, I feel those jobs are most likely to get cut if business is going poorly.
A PhD isn't like a MBA which is meant mostly for the credential and associated pay bump. It's a research degree that you get if you want to work in academia or in a private research lab. If you're evaluating it purely by its economic value, of course it's not going to make sense, but that assessment misses why people pursue these degrees in the first place.
It also dismisses the effect it has on society entirely. In a sane world, we would enable anyone who wants to pursue a PhD in hopes in advancing things like medical science or our understanding of the world. The fact that people really can only care about the economic value education can bring, and the fact we all act like that's normal, is very radicalizing to me.
True, but like the VC model with companies, it's very difficult to consistently identify those people in advance. Invest in a load of qualified, promising individuals and hope more than a few "hit".
The desire to do something and understand something is the root of everything, and who are to preemptively decide who has that capability? What a pompous thing to say. On top of that you are operating on the assumption that it matters. If someone wants to learn, they should be able to learn. I guarantee you that we as a society have stifled people who would be this generations Einstein so to speak.
The money stifles. There's not enough money for everyone who wants a Very Large Array of their own. People don't have money to sit around thinking all day. There needs to be some system of deciding priority. The profit incentive is the only reason any science dependent on HPC and GPUs is possible. If you want more science, you need more economic growth.
> I suppose PhDs can get a shortcut into Prinicple or Senior roles, so there's some tangible benefit.
I don't think that's a thing. Some government job will use a pay scale that varies based on your education level, but fast-tracking someone in software engineering because they got a PhD seems questionable seeing as the skillset does not really overlap.
It's a different thing for corporate research labs, where usually you need a masters for entry-level and PhD for the level above.
My observation is PhDs make mostly great salesmen in normal tech companies that aren't doing anything crazy. It's a pretty good strategy to have a team of theoretically competent, titled, well spoken and well dressed employees to send/show to clients to get work and then outsource that work to cheap labour.
It's a lot of work and time, and most companies don't particularly need PhDs. Maybe a PhD gets a boost in pay starting out, but 5 years of experience cancels out most of the benefit. I suppose PhDs can get a shortcut into Prinicple or Senior roles, so there's some tangible benefit.
On the other hand, if a company is hiring PhDs and doing research, I feel those jobs are most likely to get cut if business is going poorly.