How important is your area of study to employers when pursuing a job?
#careeradvice #mastersdegree #machinelearning #artificialintelligence #systems #cryptography #networksecurity
– Will focusing on ML/AI limit me to roles in that field?
– Can studying Systems with a focus on Cryptography and Network Security impact my ability to work in ML/AI?
– How much weight do employers give to your main area of study when considering hiring you, especially with experience as a developer of 3+ years?
It only matters if the company / role aligns with that area of study, otherwise no one will care.
No. If you have at least a bit of relevant experience and seem like someone who cares and can learn and will work well with the team, no one cares what your field of study was.
Not much, but some. I work with plenty of SWEs like backend engineers with ML specializations in MS, and ML engineers and data scientists from unrelated fields. I guess if you study CS and have a job doing ML it is common that you studied a nontrivial amount of stats and ML, mostly as these are common to be tested in interviews.
That is for your kind of situation, early career, after getting MS.
With more experience it will matter less.
What school is this?
No one except Canonical, who loves drinking their own piss and cares what extracurriculars you did in high school.
>Would I be locked into a software security position and thus not able to work in ML/AI?
Studying one thing does not lock you into that thing for the rest of your life.
As far as locking yourself into a specific field a specialized course-based MS isn’t going to do that alone. You have 3YOE although I’m not sure in what but professional exp outweighs school at a certain point depending on the area. Like if you had 3YOE in something like DS and training/building models, that would get you further than going back to school. If your exp is in web/app dev, going back to school will definitely help you
The more junior you are the more employers (at least respectable ones) care about field of study
It doesn’t matter in theory, but in practice people tend to stay close to their degree field/focus. The exception tends to be if they just can’t make it work with what they got a degree in (finance, biostats) and put effort into pivoting
It doesn’t matter. I couldn’t find jobs related to the topic of my master, so currently the diploma is useless and it becomes even more useless as the time passes and the knowledge is forgotten
I don’t think it will lock you in but I would think twice about the requirement if a masters degree. I would confirm that you really need the masters.
No one cares ever (except your mom, she is super proud of your area of study!!)