I have a BS, MS and PhD in CS and Comp. Eng. I needed a job. Turns out my PhD wasn't such a hot commodity, at least in the DC area. For a GS type job, it can

I have a BS, MS and PhD in CS and Comp. Eng. I needed a job. Turns out my PhD wasn't such a hot commodity, at least in the DC area. For a GS type job, it can translate to automatic pay grade, and a contracting company may want a PhD on paper for their bids. Coding interviews might be a bit easier. But, the actual dev ops work I do, while I use a bit of distributed systems theory to understand things, is mostly orthogonal to my education. The theory I do use I can easily explain to non CS background employees in about 10-20 minutes. The practical knowledge I use (Linux, coding, s/w eng.) I picked up in my own time and one or two classes. Why did I get the PhD? Primarily for pie in the sky reasons. The knowledge and research. Not in order to get a job or teach in academia.