Ask HN: Job Differences with B.Eng. IT and M.Eng. Software Engineering | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Job Differences with B.Eng. IT and M.Eng. Software Engineering

3 pointswhiff3 comments

I'm currently studying Bachelor of Engineering in IT, but with very software minded courses. The whole education is 3.5 years with 20 weeks full time internship (me as a software developer).

I love solving problems in software, so I'm wondering if I should go for an extension of my education with a (2 year) Master of Engineering in Software Engineering.

The problem is, that I don't know what employers prefer, and what the difference would be in the jobs with the two educations. I don't want to be excluded from some exciting software jobs. But on the other hand, I could use that time it takes to study the Master's to work full-time and get a lot of hands-on knowledge. I was primarily self-taught before starting on the education, and worked a few years a a PHP web developer. On the education, I've had multiple software engineering courses (three to be precise). Ranging from introduction to SE, more advanced SE and design of software systems, also have plenty of programming courses, but primarily in Java and C#, but I know other languages myself (PHP, Ruby, Python, whatever). I don't think it matters which languages you have worked in. If I work full time in a new language, I'll probably be fluent in it very quickly. I've also have courses like discreet mathematics, operating systems and networks, networks and security, CBSE, algorithms and data structures, AI etc.

What are the differences between the jobs I could get with a B.Eng and M.Eng?

While there are certainly companies that hire mainly on credentials, over the long run most of the difference between jobs will come down to what you have learned and not learned via an M.Eng or learned and not learned by forgoing it and the relevance of those things or their absence to a particular employer. Both academic and industry experience will open some doors.

In my opinion, the reason to pursue a graduate degree is because a graduate degree is right for you. Whether it is right or wrong for someone else has no bearing that. Sometimes I think trying to guess about employment while a student is mostly a waste of time compared to just working hard and getting good at something enjoyable and interesting. Just get good grades, learn a lot and decide about graduate school when you are close to graduating.

Good luck.

> What are the differences between the jobs I could get with a B.Eng and M.Eng?

Once you've got to the point of getting a face to face interview - none at all, and then on day one of your job, your qualifications (even a PhD) in most reputable software shops become irrelevant to your colleagues.

In the longer term a masters can definitely help if you're involved with visa related processes.

If you obtained some specific domain expertise that is interesting to the employer in your thesis that can help. Then again, you don't necessarily need to do a masters to demonstrate such expertise. Creating and publishing applications, open source project involvement and the rest can be as valuable if not more so.

Thanks! I also just noticed that it's actually a M.Sc. in Software Engineering (not M.Eng). Don't know if that makes any difference.

But you make a good point regarding OSS involvement. That is definitely something I will look into as a side project.

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