I'd say it's no advantage in itself when it comes to software. In general I'd say most people view it as a negative signal because grad school delays entry into

I'd say it's no advantage in itself when it comes to software. In general I'd say most people view it as a negative signal because grad school delays entry into industry by a few years (reducing practical in-the-wild experience) and tends to be associated with "ivory tower" concerns rather than pragmatism. That being said, most hiring decisions I've seen (at companies with good software recruiting practices) have been based on what you can produce, rather than what your credentials are. You might get a phone screen with some high level questions to make sure no one's time is wasted, but after that, the candidate sits down with the team and builds something. If you can work well in the environment and have skills that complement the existing team, what you did in school tends not to matter as much. This can be different if the role requires specific knowledge and deeper understanding, such as building distributed systems under certain parameters, cryptography, database architecture, or machine learning, to name a few. But even still, simply having a Ph.D. isn't necessarily an advantage. In this case, I think the author's understanding of bleeding-edge web standards, demonstrated ability to build a prototype using them to enhance user experience, and clear exposition of the problem and his solution would be much stronger signals as to his employability than his education.