Looking at your resume, you've got decent experience with both undergraduate research, TA'ing, small companies and a large company. I had similar experiences at

Looking at your resume, you've got decent experience with both undergraduate research, TA'ing, small companies and a large company. I had similar experiences at CMU when I went there (for ChemE, not CS), and I decided that entering industry (in 99, a great year to get hired) was better. If I'd graduated in 2001 or 2002, I'd probably have stayed in grad school. How is recruiting looking at CMU this year? Do you have solid job offers already? Does the professor you've been doing research with have any suggestions about where to apply to grad school? A friend of mine graduated with a CS PhD last year, and he just took an interesting job working on the key algorithms behind one of the "big names" in tech today. But other opportunities he was offered were the same as he would have gotten with 10 years of software development experience. I'll also say this - if you don't get your PhD now, it's a lot harder to go back and do it when you have a mortgage and other commitments.