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Silicon Valley hiring manager here. From my perspective, unfortunately, Georgia Tech has really diluted the value of their masters in cs degree. They have beco

Silicon Valley hiring manager here. From my perspective, unfortunately, Georgia Tech has really diluted the value of their masters in cs degree. They have become a sort of immigration visa-mill with very many India undergrad -> Georgia Tech Masters of very questionable skill level. Just my experience.

agentgt 10y ago
GT grad here (1999-2003). While I'm not Indian I do have a ton of Indian friends and yes GT does have a large Indian percentage (by observation from when I was there). I can't speak if the CS degree has been diluted but I will say there is an enormous amount of extremely undeserved selective bias against Indian people for technology jobs. When US citizens even see Indian names there are less likely to hire (known as name bias). Again I can't speak for the programs but my Indian friends that went to tech were at the top of their class both in MS and BS. Highly qualified. Extremely humble, ambitious and hungry. Just my experience (and I run a recruiting software company so I see it at scale). I compare this to the apathetic divas that I have met from Stanford and MIT (I live in Mass so I have met many MIT grads). I would hire a GT grad over them any day.
- uptownfunk 10y ago
  CMU has done this too unfortunately with their online MS degrees.
  - assface 10y ago
    Those degrees are not CS. AFAIK, CMU only has a software engineering online degree.
    - uptownfunk 10y ago
      Sure, but... We have clients hiring individuals looking only at cmu and see an online ms tangentially related to analytics then they associate that with cmus world class ml program and then touting them in our faces as the latest and greatest in machine learning. When we interview folks from the same program they don't make it past our first round because they don't know technique or programming
- yarou 10y ago
  >When US citizens even see Indian names there are less likely to hire (known as name bias). You're doubly fucked if you have an Indian name and you were born here. White hiring managers automatically assume you're incompetent, and Indian H1B hiring managers are threatened because they fear for their job. When I was younger, I found it odd that many of family members of mine would Americanize their name. Now, I've experienced the reality of it.
  - uptownfunk 10y ago
    Damn. I'm a second gen Indian and this makes total sense. I may do an experiment and go with a western name just to see what happens. But then I'm reminded of all the other Asians who do that and think isn't it a little odd for an Asian to be named Winston Chang and more normal for something like wu Xi or something. Or maybe that's too nomenclature-normative and we should be more agnostic to the orientation of someone's chosen name
- hiram112 10y ago
  Indians have a stigma for a very good reason: the 5% top engineers are drowned out by the 95% posers used by body shops (Infy, TCS, etc.) that have literally taken over numerous industries in the US tech market. I worked in India for one of these BPO companies and know what I'm talking about. If the good engineers from India want to reclaim their status, they need to push back against the flood of H1Bs from these companies. But instead, the majority of HN (or at least the guys who do more hiring, less coding) keeps pushing for more and more visas when we should be urging Congress to reform the system to allow the talent to come in (with Green Card), while disallowing US companies from using it to lower wages for all US engineers.
  - agentgt 10y ago
    I have no doubt about the stigma... but one should be careful about letting stereotypes into their decision process particularly when it comes to hiring and race. It is not just morally wrong it is against the law (at least in the US). I'm sure the hiring manager who posted earlier will say it doesn't affect the decision but the subconscious bias is a real thing.
    - kapilkaisare 10y ago
      I concur, but I'd rephrase it like so: It's not just against the law, it is morally wrong.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
slezakattack 10y ago
I get this too. However, I can say that it's not just Indians. There are quite a few people from all backgrounds who have questionable skill levels from prestigious schools and/or who have masters degrees. I've given enough interviews to realize that there is an alarming amount of people who can't figure out how to write an "addition" function given two strings representing positive integers in a 45 minute window. So, I honestly skip over the school and education in the candidate's resume and see what their work experience is (or side projects if they have that).
- nvarsj 10y ago
  Yes it's not just masters and it's not just indians. I think everyone who has been in tech long enough can give many examples of people with great backgrounds who just weren't great engineers. Education is a signal for sure though I think - it shows a certain willingness to dedicate oneself, and a certain level of intelligence and aptitude to attain, and getting a M.S. or PhD or even a B.S. from a hard school is going to filter out a lot of people already. I also think a graduate degree is necessary for certain types of work. For just bog standard programming jobs where you can read a web page to learn the language/framework/library, sure you don't need it. But for other types of roles (quant roles, more research oriented, ML, anything tech cutting edge that requires theoretical understanding), an M.S. or Ph.D. is going to be a gatekeeper whether you want it to or not.
TFortunato 10y ago
Question for you if you don't mind... I've been out of undergrad and working in industry for close to a decade as a Software Engineer and/or Embedded Systems Engineer. I feel I'm doing pretty well in my career, but I've been looking at the online masters in CS as a way of showing that I'm dedicated to continuing learning, and to maybe open up some new doors for myself down the road. From your perspective as a hiring manager, would this be worth the time and effort? It's not like I wouldn't be interested and learning new stuff anyways, but if I'm going to go invest the time and money to do the degree vs. learning on my own, it would be nice to know if it was worth anything. (No sweat if you don't feel like answering, or want to take this private. Thanks!)
- png_hero 10y ago
  For getting a new job, only do an online masters if you want to switch specialties (i.e. move from embedded to security or web programming, etc) If staying in embedded will just focus on work experience.
- donretag 10y ago
  I believe that a dedication to continuing learning as massively important in our field, so it is something that I always ask every candidate during an interview. Not everyone has time for open-source projects, blogging, what not, but anything is important. Following Martin Fowler in Twitter, receiving a newsletter, something, anything. Candidates that demonstrate no interest in furthering themselves is risky, but from themselves and the company. That said, a masters degree is not necessary, it is an overkill. I rather see open-source projects.
  - criddell 10y ago
    > That said, a masters degree is not necessary, it is an overkill. I rather see open-source projects. There are companies where side projects or off-hours work on open source projects is complicated. Employment contracts that say the employer owns all of your work, on the clock or off, aren't uncommon. It might be easier for some people to get a masters degree, especially when employers are willing to pay for it.
  - 10y ago

agentgt 10y ago

GT grad here (1999-2003). While I'm not Indian I do have a ton of Indian friends and yes GT does have a large Indian percentage (by observation from when I was there). I can't speak if the CS degree has been diluted but I will say there is an enormous amount of extremely undeserved selective bias against Indian people for technology jobs. When US citizens even see Indian names there are less likely to hire (known as name bias). Again I can't speak for the programs but my Indian friends that went to tech were at the top of their class both in MS and BS. Highly qualified. Extremely humble, ambitious and hungry. Just my experience (and I run a recruiting software company so I see it at scale). I compare this to the apathetic divas that I have met from Stanford and MIT (I live in Mass so I have met many MIT grads). I would hire a GT grad over them any day.

uptownfunk 10y ago
CMU has done this too unfortunately with their online MS degrees.
- assface 10y ago
  Those degrees are not CS. AFAIK, CMU only has a software engineering online degree.
  - uptownfunk 10y ago
    Sure, but... We have clients hiring individuals looking only at cmu and see an online ms tangentially related to analytics then they associate that with cmus world class ml program and then touting them in our faces as the latest and greatest in machine learning. When we interview folks from the same program they don't make it past our first round because they don't know technique or programming
yarou 10y ago
>When US citizens even see Indian names there are less likely to hire (known as name bias). You're doubly fucked if you have an Indian name and you were born here. White hiring managers automatically assume you're incompetent, and Indian H1B hiring managers are threatened because they fear for their job. When I was younger, I found it odd that many of family members of mine would Americanize their name. Now, I've experienced the reality of it.
- uptownfunk 10y ago
  Damn. I'm a second gen Indian and this makes total sense. I may do an experiment and go with a western name just to see what happens. But then I'm reminded of all the other Asians who do that and think isn't it a little odd for an Asian to be named Winston Chang and more normal for something like wu Xi or something. Or maybe that's too nomenclature-normative and we should be more agnostic to the orientation of someone's chosen name
hiram112 10y ago
Indians have a stigma for a very good reason: the 5% top engineers are drowned out by the 95% posers used by body shops (Infy, TCS, etc.) that have literally taken over numerous industries in the US tech market. I worked in India for one of these BPO companies and know what I'm talking about. If the good engineers from India want to reclaim their status, they need to push back against the flood of H1Bs from these companies. But instead, the majority of HN (or at least the guys who do more hiring, less coding) keeps pushing for more and more visas when we should be urging Congress to reform the system to allow the talent to come in (with Green Card), while disallowing US companies from using it to lower wages for all US engineers.
- agentgt 10y ago
  I have no doubt about the stigma... but one should be careful about letting stereotypes into their decision process particularly when it comes to hiring and race. It is not just morally wrong it is against the law (at least in the US). I'm sure the hiring manager who posted earlier will say it doesn't affect the decision but the subconscious bias is a real thing.
  - kapilkaisare 10y ago
    I concur, but I'd rephrase it like so: It's not just against the law, it is morally wrong.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

slezakattack 10y ago

I get this too. However, I can say that it's not just Indians. There are quite a few people from all backgrounds who have questionable skill levels from prestigious schools and/or who have masters degrees. I've given enough interviews to realize that there is an alarming amount of people who can't figure out how to write an "addition" function given two strings representing positive integers in a 45 minute window. So, I honestly skip over the school and education in the candidate's resume and see what their work experience is (or side projects if they have that).

nvarsj 10y ago
Yes it's not just masters and it's not just indians. I think everyone who has been in tech long enough can give many examples of people with great backgrounds who just weren't great engineers. Education is a signal for sure though I think - it shows a certain willingness to dedicate oneself, and a certain level of intelligence and aptitude to attain, and getting a M.S. or PhD or even a B.S. from a hard school is going to filter out a lot of people already. I also think a graduate degree is necessary for certain types of work. For just bog standard programming jobs where you can read a web page to learn the language/framework/library, sure you don't need it. But for other types of roles (quant roles, more research oriented, ML, anything tech cutting edge that requires theoretical understanding), an M.S. or Ph.D. is going to be a gatekeeper whether you want it to or not.

TFortunato 10y ago

Question for you if you don't mind... I've been out of undergrad and working in industry for close to a decade as a Software Engineer and/or Embedded Systems Engineer. I feel I'm doing pretty well in my career, but I've been looking at the online masters in CS as a way of showing that I'm dedicated to continuing learning, and to maybe open up some new doors for myself down the road. From your perspective as a hiring manager, would this be worth the time and effort? It's not like I wouldn't be interested and learning new stuff anyways, but if I'm going to go invest the time and money to do the degree vs. learning on my own, it would be nice to know if it was worth anything. (No sweat if you don't feel like answering, or want to take this private. Thanks!)

png_hero 10y ago
For getting a new job, only do an online masters if you want to switch specialties (i.e. move from embedded to security or web programming, etc) If staying in embedded will just focus on work experience.
donretag 10y ago
I believe that a dedication to continuing learning as massively important in our field, so it is something that I always ask every candidate during an interview. Not everyone has time for open-source projects, blogging, what not, but anything is important. Following Martin Fowler in Twitter, receiving a newsletter, something, anything. Candidates that demonstrate no interest in furthering themselves is risky, but from themselves and the company. That said, a masters degree is not necessary, it is an overkill. I rather see open-source projects.
- criddell 10y ago
  > That said, a masters degree is not necessary, it is an overkill. I rather see open-source projects. There are companies where side projects or off-hours work on open source projects is complicated. Employment contracts that say the employer owns all of your work, on the clock or off, aren't uncommon. It might be easier for some people to get a masters degree, especially when employers are willing to pay for it.
- 10y ago