tl;dr is it worth to obtain PhD title in order to get better DS career perspectives, even if it would require a lot of commitment and dedication?
I’m 25 yo, working full-time as Backend Engineer and also studying CS (specialization in DS) full-time. It’s my final year and I’m already working on my master’s thesis.
So here’s the thing. After solid 5 years spend in IT industry as backend developer I come to conclusion that’s not really what I want to do for the rest of my life. I worked at couple different companies (both startups and Big4), and I don’t see any development prospects for myself in this branch of the industry. It no longer gives me that “sparkle” and feel of fulfillment as it used to. At the same time, during my CS studies at Uni I started working on some basic DS stuff, I wrote a bachelor’s thesis about multiclass classification and now continue my work on that topic writing my master’s thesis. Working on anything related to DS makes me feel like a 5 yo with a dinosaur atlas, I can spend hours reading research papers, searching for datasets and programming. I’d love to get a job in DS soon, but at the same time I’m still insecure about my DS skills. I also can’t afford to get a “junior level” job in DS, as I already have financial obligations that must be met.
Here’s what I came up with: first I’ll sign up for PhD studies, during which I’ll have a lot of time to learn, experiment, and I’ll be supported during the process by my supervisor. During these studies I’d still have to work full-time BE or DS job (if I would find a DS job that pays enough to cover my obligations), which would be quite exhausting, but I’m used to working and studying 12 hrs a day to pay the bills and pass the exams. After I eventually obtain my PhD title, my perspectives for getting a highly paid job in the future should be much better, and I’d probably already have enough experience to get a regular DS job at any company related to the field of my studies. The only thing that makes me anxious about signing up for PhD is a fact that I have no academic achievements yet, I haven’t published a single research paper yet.
What’s your opinion on this? Does my reasoning make any sense to you?
PhD student here. I’m 100% in on it being worth it because of what I want to do in my career: research. Working at the cutting edge on mentally challenging problems is fun to me. I think this is more necessary for machine learning than data science, though I would suggest at least a master’s for data science. It also really depends on the specifics of the positions you want to be in. The best thing to do is to start looking at jobs and thinking about career paths. Then, think about what you need to get there. Of course, things change quickly, so you might want to think about what jobs will be in demand in 5 years.